Masaryk University

Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Kristýna Onderková

Possessive Pronouns in English and Czech Works of Fiction, Their Use with Parts of Human Body and Translation

Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Ing. Mgr. Jiří Rambousek

2009

0

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………

1

I would like to express thanks to my supervisor, Ing. Mgr. Jiří Rambousek, for his valuable advice.

2 Table of Contents

1 Introduction...... 5

2 Theory...... 7

2.1 English possessive pronouns...... 7

2.1.1 Grammatical properties...... 7

2.1.2 Use...... 8

2.2 Czech possessive pronouns...... 9

2.2.1 Grammatical properties...... 10

2.2.2 Use...... 11

2.3 Translating possessive pronouns...... 11

3 Frequency data analysis...... 14

3.1 Frequency of possessive pronouns in original English and Czech

works of fiction...... 15

3.2 Frequency of possessive pronouns in original English and Czech

works of fiction and their translations...... 23

3.3 Frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body

in original Czech and English works of fiction...... 31

3.4 Frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body

in original Czech and English works of fiction and their translations...... 37

4 Translating possessive pronouns – practical analysis...... 44

4.1 Translating possessive pronouns used with parts of human body

from English into Czech...... 44

4.1.1 Introduction...... 44

4.1.2 Analysis...... 48

3 4.2 Translating possessive pronouns used with parts of human body from Czech into English...... 74

4.2.1 Introduction...... 74

4.2.2 Parts of human body used with a possessive pronoun in Czech... 75

4.2.3 Parts of human body used with the verb “mít“ (= to have)

in Czech...... 76

4.2.4 Parts of human body used with a personal pronoun

in the dative case in Czech...... 77

4.2.5 Parts of human body used with a personal pronoun

in the accusative case in Czech...... 80

4.2.6 Parts of human body used with a zero pronoun in Czech...... 82

4.2.7 Conclusion...... 89

5 Conclusion...... 94

6 Bibliography...... 98

4 1. Introduction

The present diploma thesis deals with possessive pronouns, particulary those used with parts of human body, in literary translations from English into Czech and vice versa. It focuses on the differences in the use of possessive pronouns in English and Czech, and various possibilities of their translation from one language into another.

Possessive pronouns constitute a rather small grammatical category to which not much attention has been paid so far in the Czech academic environment and even less has been written about their translation from and into English. However, as possessive pronouns are treated differently in the two languages, their translation may be problematic especially for inexperienced translators and may often result in unnatural, source-language influenced phrases. The principal aim of this thesis is to help translators to avoid similar errors by creating some general rules on the translation of possessive pronouns to which translators can turn whenever they are not certain how to translate a particular phrase. It also tries to help to clarify how possessive pronouns are treated in the individual languages, which may also be useful for linguists or language learners.

The thesis is conceived as a corpus study. All the data used for analysis were retrieved from the parallel corpus Kačenka, created at the Department of English and American

Studies, the Faculty of Arts at the Masaryk University in Brno, and the parallel corpus

InterCorp, recently created by the Faculty of Arts, Charles University, Prague, as a part of the original Czech National Corpus. Corpus linguistics has proven still more useful in translation studies in the recent years, enabling easy access to a large number of existing translations of the selected unit in various published literary and non-literary works. For my analysis of translation of possessive pronouns from English into Czech, which is the main part of my thesis, I used the whole corpus Kačenka, randomly selecting several pages for each data. For other parts of my thesis, I used three English novels and their Czech translations in the corpus

5 Kačenka: Kingsley Amis´s Lucky Jim, Thomas Hardy´s Jude the Obscure, and Mark Frost´s

The List of 7, and three Czech novels and their English translations in the corpus InterCorp:

Zdeněk Jirotka´s Saturnin, Milan Kundera´s Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, and Michal Viewegh´s

Výchova dívek v Čechách.

The first part of my thesis is rather theoretical as it presents the information collected from the secondary literature, constituted predominantly by Czech and English books of grammar and some other linguistic works. It introduces some basic information on the form, grammatical properties, use, and the translation of possessive pronouns. It also presents some general hypotheses on the differences in the use of possessive pronouns, particulary those used with parts of human body, which I will try to verify in the analytical part of my thesis.

The second part of my thesis examines the frequency of possessive pronouns and the frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in original Czech and

English works of fiction and their translations in order to gain and verify some general hypotheses on the differences in use of possessive pronouns in the two languages.

The third part of my thesis is constituted by the analysis of the translation of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body from English into Czech and vice versa.

It presents a number of examples of how possessive pronouns and phrases containing possessive pronouns are translated and tries to clarify the reasons for the particular translations. It states some general rules on translating possessive pronouns from English into

Czech and vice versa, along with rules regarding the use of possessive pronouns in each language.

6 2 Theory

2.1 English possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns in English are not a clearly defined category and various grammar books treat them differently. The problem arises from the fact that there exist two sets of English possessive pronouns: the first being pronouns with a determinative function and therefore dependent on the noun, the second being pronouns used independently as a noun phrase (Quirk 361).

Table 1: Determinative and independent possessive pronouns in English determinative my your his her its our their

(thy) independent mine yours his hers its ours theirs

(thine)

While there are no differences about the category of independent pronouns which are generally listed as possessive pronouns, determinative pronouns are sometimes referred to as possessive pronouns (Quirk 361), sometimes as possessive determiners (Biber, 270) or even possessive adjectives (Curme 46) or genitive articles (Strang 128). As the idea to see the first set as pronouns is closer to the Czech grammar, where no difference in form exists, and since the second set of pronouns is not dealt with in my thesis, I decided to leave the first set in the pronoun category and speak of them as possessive pronouns.

2.1.1 Grammatical properties

Determinative possessive pronouns function as determiners – i.e. they are used to specify the reference of a noun (Biber 258) and they are in complementary distribution with

7 articles, demonstrative determiners and other determiners (Dušková 106). However, they can be regarded as pronouns as they share their ability to replace nouns (more specifically nouns in the genitive case) and to function as economy devices (Huddleston 471). They can also be regarded as adjectives as they share their most characteristic function – to modify nouns.

Determinative possessive pronouns precede the noun in the noun phrase, they do not distinguish gender or number and they cannot be declined. They can combine with both countable and uncountable nouns and even with proper nouns (Biber 271). They cannot be accompanied by any modifiers or determiners, except for the determinative “own“. “Own“ intensifies their meaning or emphasizes coreference between the possessive and the subject of the clause (Quirk 362-363).

2.1.2 Use

The basic function of determinative possessive pronouns is to attribute ownership to the speaker/writer, the addressee or other entities mentioned in the text or given in the speech situation (Biber 270-271). However, they are used to cover a substantially larger range of relationships than only possession, such as family and social relationships, personal experience, authorship, responsibilities, etc. (Biber 340). Furthemore, English possessive pronouns can be used to convey the idea of appreciation or depreciation: “He knows his

Shakespeare.“ (Curme 47). As they are particularly associated with human beings and often serve to identify objects by their relationships to humans, they are very common in fiction and also relatively common in conversation. They are also common in news but their frequency is low in academic prose (Biber 272).

Determinative possessive pronouns can be occassionally replaced by personal pronouns. The language of American Quakers often uses thee instead of thy, and it is common

8 in the southern American dialect to use a personal pronoun instead of a possessive (Curme

47).

English possessive pronouns are used almost obligatorily with family members, parts of human body, clothes and personal objects (Dušková 107, Hnük von Wicher 71). In these cases, the possessive pronoun is replaced by the definite article if:

1. the object of possession (e.g. a body part) does not belong to the subject of the sentence and the prepositional phrase which contains the body part is preceded by an object personal pronoun: “She slapped him in the face.“ (Hais 83)

2. the object of possession (e.g. a body part) is used in general, not specific meaning:

“He was in the habit of raising the elbow.“ (Hais 83)

3. the verb is reflexive: “He shot himself in the leg.“ (Hais 83)

4. the prepositional phrase which contains the object of possession (a body part) relates to the subject in the passive constructions: “He was hit on the head.“ (Strnadová 88)

2.2 Czech possessive pronouns

Czech possessive pronouns are not distinguished in terms of their determinative function; only one form is used in both their independent and dependent position in the sentence. Therefore the Czech terminology is rather unified and in most Czech grammar books they are referred to only as possessive pronouns.

However, unlike in English, the Czech possessive pronouns contain a category of reflexive pronouns (“svůj“, “svá“ etc.) which are used in all persons singular and plural, usually when the possessor is the subject of the sentence.

There are two Czech equivalents for the English “your“/ “yours“ in singular: “tvůj“,

“tvoje“ etc. for informal reference and “váš“, “vaše“ etc. for formal references.

9 2.2.1 Grammatical properties

Czech possessive pronouns also function as determiners and they precede the noun in the noun phrase. They are not in the complementary distribution with demonstrative determiners and other determiners. They have the ability to replace nouns and to function as economy devices and they modify nouns.

Czech possessive pronouns distinguish gender and number and are declined, except for the pronouns “jeho“ (masculine and neuter) and “jejich“. They are in the agreement with the nouns which they modify.

The following table offers an overview of Czech possessive pronouns in the nominative case (Grepl 289-290).

Table 2: Czech possessive pronouns in the nominative case

NUMBER PERSON MASCULINE FEMININE NEUTER

SG. 1. můj má / moje mé / moje

2. tvůj tvá / tvoje tvé / tvoje

3. jeho její jeho

REFLEXIVE svůj svá / svoje své / svoje

PL. 1. náš naše naše

2. váš vaše vaše

3. jejich jejich jejich

REFLEXIVE svoji / sví své / svoje své / svoje

10 2.2.2 Use

The basic function of Czech possessive pronouns is generally the same as in English: they attribute ownership to various entities in the text or speech and the idea of possession also relates to a number of other relations, such as family and social relationships, etc.

The neuter possessive pronouns “mé“, “tvé“, “své“ when used as nouns refer to “my possession“, “your possession“ etc. (E.g. “Nedělá rozdíl mezi mým a tvým.“) Similarly, the possessives “můj“, “náš“, “moje“, “naše“, “jeho“, and “její“ used as nouns refer to “my husband“, “my wife“, etc. and “naši“, “vaši“ refer to “our/your parents“, “siblings“, “favourite sports team“, etc. (E.g. “Naši nejsou doma.“) (Havránek, 198-199)

2.3 Translating possessive pronouns

Not much has been written about translating possessive pronouns from English into

Czech and vice versa. Some references to the problem can be found in comparative grammar books or textbooks of English; however, they are rather scarce. The only rather complex comparative grammar book of English and Czech is Mluvnice současné angličtiny na pozadí

češtiny by Libuše Dušková which offers some very basic information about the difference in use of English and Czech possessive pronouns. Other books with similar information are

Zdenka Strnadová´s Mluvnice angličtiny and Karel Hais´s Anglická mluvnice. However, most

Czech textbooks of English deal with the problem only marginally or not at all and no other studies are available.

Some problems with the translation of English possessive pronouns into Czech and vice versa arise from the difference in the English and Czech grammatical systems. However, these problems are easily solved if one has a sufficient knowledge of the two systems which can be acquired by reading any basic grammar book of the two languages. Since I talked

11 about the systems in the precedening chapters, only a brief summary of the main distinctions is listed in the table below.

Table 3: Differences in the systems of possessive pronouns in English and Czech

ENGLISH POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS CZECH POSSESSIVE PRONOUNS

2 sets of possessive pronouns: determinative no distinction between determinative and and independent independent possessive pronouns non-existence of reflexive possessive existence of reflexive possessive pronouns pronouns do not distinguish gender or number distinguish gender and number cannot be declined are declined

cannot be preceded by articles, can be preceded by articles, demonstrative demonstrative pronouns, or the indefinite pronouns or the indefinite pronoun “ţádný“ pronoun “no“

Greater problems arise from the difference in the use of possessive pronouns in

English and Czech as this area is very large and has not been properly explored yet. It is generally known that English possessive pronouns are used much more frequently than Czech possessive pronouns, especially in reference to family members, friends, parts of human body, clothes and personal objects. In Czech, the possessive relationship is often expressed by personal or reflexive pronouns in the dative case or not expressed at all (zero pronoun). E.g.:

“He dropped his stick.“ “Upustil hůl.“ “She pulled on her gloves.“ “Navlékla si rukavice.“

(Dušková 107). Personal or reflexive pronouns in the dative case can be used in the Czech translation not only if the possession relates to the subject of the sentence, but also when it relates to the object. E.g.: “You have eaten my supper.“ “Snědl jsi mi večeři.“ (Dušková 107)

12 However, it has not been explained in which situations the English possessive pronoun should be translated into Czech as a zero pronoun and when as a personal or reflexive pronoun in the dative case, nor does any grammar book mentions other possibilities to translate English possessive pronouns into Czech.

If we draw on the assumption that we translate meaning, not words, we can theoretically presume that English possessive pronouns can be translated into Czech by any words, phrases or grammatical functions which convey the idea of possession. According to

Piťha‟s work Posesivní vztah v češtině, this is in the Czech language realized by:

- the verb mít (= to have) and být (= to be)

- other verbs, e.g. patřit, příslušet, náleţet (= to belong to), vlastnit (= to own)

- possessive pronouns, genitive case

- prepositional phrases

- dative case

We can therefore assume that any of the above structures can be used in the English-

Czech translation of possessive pronouns. I will try to confirm this assumption in the analytical part of my thesis.

13 3 Frequency data analysis

The aim of this analysis is to discover differences in the use of possessive pronouns in

English and Czech original works of fiction and their translations. The first aim is to confirm the hypothesis stating that the occurrence of possessive pronouns in English is higher than in

Czech. The second aim is to confirm the hypothesis stating that the occurrence of possessive pronouns may be higher in Czech translations of English works than in original Czech works and lower in English translations of Czech works than in original English works due to the translator´s tendency to become influenced by the source language. The third and forth aim is to confirm the same hypotheses concerning possessive pronouns used with parts of human body, in which case the difference between occurrences in English and in Czech ought to be substantially higher as the use of possessive pronouns with parts of human body is in most cases obligatory in English whereas not very common in Czech.

For my analysis I used the parallel corpus Kačenka and the parallel corpus InterCorp.

Kačenka contains 30 literary texts and 2 non-literary texts in their original English versions and Czech translations. InterCorp contains original texts, both literary and non-literary, in 21 different European languages including their Czech translations; out of which there are 27 original English works and their Czech translations, and 8 original Czech works and their

English translations.

To compare the frequency of any grammatical or lexical unit in English and Czech texts, it is preferable to use works of similar contents created at the approximately same period of time to avoid differences in use of the unit caused by different styles and historical periods. Unfortunately, my choice was limited by the rather low number of Czech works translated into English available in the parallel corpus. However, since possessive pronouns are grammatical words used in most styles and all modern historical periods with no substantial differences, the parallel between the selected Czech and English works does not

14 necesserily have to be so close. For my analysis, I chose 3 English novels and their Czech translations, and 3 Czech novels and their English translations: Kingsley Amis´s Lucky Jim, a satiric novel first published in 1954, Thomas Hardy´s Jude the Obscure, a social novel first published in 1895, and Mark Frost´s The List of 7, a mystery, horror, historical and metaphysical novel first published in 1993; as opposed to Zdeněk Jirotka´s Saturnin, a humorous novel first published in 1942, Milan Kundera´s Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, an existential and philosophical novel first published in Czech in 1985, and Michal Vilewegh´s

Výchova dívek v Čechách, a tragic love novel first published in 1994.

3.1 Frequency of possessive pronouns in original English and Czech works of fiction

To calculate the frequency of possessive pronouns in English original works of fiction

I used three English novels in the corpus Kačenka: Lucky Jim, Jude the Obscure, and The List of 7. As it is hitherto impossible to create a subcorpus in Kačenka, I had to use the whole corpus selecting the individual novels and counting the data by hand. There were no problems with calculating the possessive pronouns “my“, “your“, “its“, “our“, and “their“, as they stand for only one grammatical category. However, as “his“ is not only the form of the determinative possessive pronoun, but also of its independent counterpart (see 2.1), I had to eliminate all independent forms out of the whole amount of samples offered by the corpus.

This would be impossible to carry out manually, considering the large number of occurrences of “his“ in each text. Therefore, keeping in mind that independent possessive pronouns usually occur at the end of a sentence or a clause, I had to input “his“ followed by the punctuation marks which are used at the end of a sentence or a clause, i.e. a full stop, comma, and semi-colon; and by conjuctions, which also mark the end of one clause and the beginning of another one, such as “and“, “but“, “although“, etc. None the less, I admit the possibility that the independent possessive pronoun might have occurred in a different position and

15 therefore was not eliminated from the samples. However, as the occurrence of independent possessive pronouns is very low, it should not have influenced my results in any considerable way.

A similar problem arose with the possessive pronoun “her“ which also stands for the object personal pronoun. Since it was impossible to carry out the selection mechanically and since the occurrence of object pronouns “her“ is rather high, I had to eliminate them manually.

The following tables show my results. They state the total number of individual possessive pronouns which appeared in the selected texts and its frequency per 1,000 words, calculated by dividing the number of possessive pronouns by the total number of words in the text divided by one thousand. They also state the overall number of all possessive pronouns in the text and its frequency per 1,000 words. The last table shows the overall number of possessive pronouns in all three texts and their frequency per 1,000 words. The possessive pronouns are in the order from the one with the highest frequency to the one with the lowest frequency.

16 Table 4: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Lucky Jim (number of words in total: 91 093) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words my 152 1.669 your 172 1.889 his 1214 13.327 her 406 4.457 its 97 1.065 our 28 0.307 their 102 1.120 total 2,171 23.833

Table 5: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Jude the Obscure (number of words in total:

147 119) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words my 568 3.861 your 309 2.100 his 1,476 10.033 her 991 6.736 its 144 0.979 our 110 0.477 their 349 2.372 total 3,947 26.829

17 Table 6: Frequency of possessive pronouns in The List of 7 (number of words in total:

136 713) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words my 461 3.372 your 349 2.553 his 1,929 14.12 her 355 2.597 its 229 1.675 our 229 1.675 their 474 3.467 total 4,026 29.449

Table 7: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Lucky Jim, Jude the Obscure, The List of 7

(number of words in total: 374,925) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words his 4,619 12.32 her 1,752 4.673 my 1,181 3.15 their 925 2.467 your 830 2.214 its 470 1.254 our 367 0.979 total 10,144 27.056

18 The table shows that the most frequent possessive pronoun in the selected English original works of fiction proved to be the pronoun “his“, its frequency being approximately three times higher than the second most frequent pronoun “her“.

To calculate the frequency of possessive pronouns in Czech original works of fiction I used three Czech novels in the corpus InterCorp: Saturnin, Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, and

Výchova dívek v Čechách. For each text I created a subcorpus in the single-language section of the parallel corpus, which rendered the calculation considerably easier. However, as Czech possessive pronouns are declined (with the exception of the pronouns “jeho“ and “jejich), I had to input all existing forms of the particular pronoun. Thus, for the pronoun “můj“ (= my),

I also had to input “mého“, “mému“, etc.

I also had to bear in mind that the form “má“ (female singular nominative and neutral plural nominative and accusative of “můj“) also stands for the third person singular of the verb “mít“ (= to have); and that the pronoun “jeho“ (= his) also stands for the accusative of the personal pronoun “on“ and eliminate them from the total number of results, which I carried out manually.

The following tables show the total number of the individual pronouns in the selected texts and their frequency per 1,000 words including the overall number of all possessive pronouns in the text and their frequency. The last table shows the total number of the possessive pronouns in all three texts, the possessive pronouns being in the order from the most frequent to the least frequent.

19 Table 8: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Saturnin (number of words in total: 55 749) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words můj 184 3.301 tvůj 7 0.126 jeho 162 2.906 její 83 1.489 náš 92 1.65 váš 54 0.969 jejich 25 0.448 svůj 285 5.112 total 892 16

Table 9: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí (number of words in total: 68 754) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words můj 44 0.64 tvůj 15 0.218 jeho 369 5.367 její 288 4.189 náš 40 0.582 váš 38 0.553 jejich 115 1.673 svůj 443 6.443 total 1,352 19.664

20 Table 10: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Výchova dívek v Čechách (number of words in total: 42 703) possessive pronoun number of the possessive pronouns frequency of the possessive pronouns

per 1000 words můj 190 4.45 tvůj 18 0.422 jeho 96 2.248 její 136 3.185 náš 76 1.78 váš 13 0.304 jejich 25 0.585 svůj 191 4.473 total 745 17.446

Table 11: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Saturnin, Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, and Výchova dívek v Čechách (number of words in total: 167,206) possessive pronoun number of the possessive pronouns frequency of the possessive pronoun

per 1000 words svůj 919 5.496 jeho 627 3.75 její 507 3.032 můj 418 2.5 náš 208 1.244 jejich 165 0.987 váš 105 0.628 tvůj 40 0.24 total 2,989 17.876

21 The table 11 shows that the most frequent possessive pronoun in the selected Czech original works of fiction proved to be the reflexive pronoun “svůj“ which can be used in all persons both singular and plural.

If we compared the frequencies of the individual pronouns, we would not arrive at any valid conclusion as the individual possessive pronouns in English do not correspond to the possessive pronouns in Czech. One of the main reasons is the existence of the pronoun “svůj“ in Czech, which can relate to any person singular and plural, whereas no such pronoun exists in English. Furthermore, there are two Czech possessive pronouns for the English “your“ :

“tvůj“ and “váš“, and there is only one Czech form for the English “his“ and “its“: “jeho“. It is also unnecessary to compare the total number of possessive pronouns in the texts as each text has a different number of words. Therefore, the following table solely shows the comparison of the frequencies of possessive pronouns in the individual English and Czech texts counted per 1,000 words and the overall frequency of possessive pronouns in the three texts.

Table 12: Comparison of the frequencies of possessive pronouns in English and Czech original works of fiction

English original Frequency of Czech original work of Frequency of work of fiction poss. pronouns fiction poss. pronouns

per 1,000 words per 1,000

words

Lucky Jim 23.833 Saturnin 16

Jude the Obscure 26.829 Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí 19.664

The List of 7 29.449 Výchova dívek v Čechách 17.446 total 27.056 total 17.876

22

From the table 12 we can see that the frequency of English possessive pronouns counted per 1,000 words in the original works of fiction is in total approximately 1.5 times higher than the frequency of Czech possessive pronouns, which confirms the original hypothesis.

3.2 Frequency of possessive pronouns in original English and Czech works of fiction and their translations

The calculation of possessive pronouns in the translations of English and Czech works of fiction was carried out with the same method as the calculation of possessive pronouns in the original works in 3.1. The following tables show the occurrence of possessive pronouns in the Czech translations of Lucky Jim, Jude the Obscure, and The List if 7 (Šťasný Jim, Neblahý

Juda, and Seznam sedmi), and in the English translations of Saturnin, Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, and Výchova dívek v Čechách (Saturnin, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and

Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia), and the overall number of possessive pronouns in all three works including their frequency per 1,000 words.

23 Table 13: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Šťastný Jim (number of words in total: 74,267) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words můj 92 1.239 tvůj 2 0.027 jeho 348 4.686 její 166 2.235 náš 22 0.296 váš 84 1.131 jejich 57 0.768 svůj 279 3.757 total 1,050 14.138

Table 14: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Neblahý Juda (number of words in total: 124,455) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words můj 322 2.587 tvůj 131 1.053 jeho 450 3.616 její 302 2.427 náš 71 0.57 váš 38 0.305 jejich 146 1.173 svůj 615 4.942 total 2,075 16.673

24 Table 15: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Seznam sedmi (number of words in total: 119,328) possessive pronoun number of the possessive pronouns frequency of the possessive pronouns

per 1000 words můj 174 1.458 tvůj 18 0.151 jeho 497 4.165 její 164 1.374 náš 124 1.039 váš 121 1.014 jejich 138 1.156 svůj 466 3.905 total 1,702 14.263

Table 16: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Šťastný Jim, Neblahý Juda, and Seznam sedmi (number of words in total: 318,328) possessive pronoun number of the possessive pronouns frequency of the possessive pronouns

per 1000 words svůj 1,360 4.276 jeho 1,295 4.072 její 632 1,987 můj 588 1,849 jejich 341 1.072 váš 243 0.764 náš 217 0.682 tvůj 151 0.475 total 4,827 15.177

25

The table shows that even in Czech translations of English works of fiction, the most frequent possessive pronoun is the reflexive “svůj“.

Table 17: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Saturnin (English translation) (number of words in total: 77,288) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronoun per 1000 words my 583 7.543 your 100 1.293 his 647 8.371 her 302 3.907 its 62 0.802 our 195 2.523 their 120 1.523 total 2009 25.994

26 Table 18: Frequency of possessive pronouns in The Unbearable Lightness of Being (number of words in total: 86,718) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronoun pronoun per 1000 words my 67 0.773 your 77 0.888 his 1072 12.362 her 438 5.051 its 115 1.326 our 62 0.715 their 274 3.16 total 2,105 24.274

Table 19: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia (number of words in total: 56,702) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words my 604 10.652 your 95 1.675 his 266 4.691 her 335 5.908 its 22 0.388 our 116 2.046 their 79 1.393 total 1,517 26.754

27

Table 20: Frequency of possessive pronouns in Saturnin, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia (number of words in total: 220,708) possessive pronoun number of the possessive frequency of the possessive

pronouns pronouns per 1000 words his 1,420 6.434 my 1,254 5.682 her 1,075 4.871 their 473 2.143 our 373 1.69 your 272 1.232 its 199 0.902 total 5,631 25,513

The table 20 shows that even in the selected English translations of Czech works of fiction, the most frequent possessive pronoun was “his“. However, the second most frequent possessive pronoun was “my“ and its frequency was only approximately 1.13 lower than the frequency of “his“. The reason is probably the fact that both Saturnin and Výchova dívek v Čechách are written in the first person narrator while all the other selected novels are written in the third person narrator.

The following table shows the comparison of the number and frequency of possessive pronouns in the original English and Czech works of fiction and their translations. It confirms the hypothesis that possessive pronouns are use more frequently in English than in Czech, their frequency in English being approximetly 1.5 times higher than in Czech.

28 Table 21: Frequency of possessive pronouns in English and Czech originals and translations work of fiction No. of poss. Frequency of the No. of poss. Frequency of the

pronouns in the poss. pronouns in the pronouns in the poss. pronouns in the

original English original translation Czech translation

Lucky Jim 2,171 23.833 1,050 14.138

Jude the Obscure 3,947 26.829 2,075 16.673

The List of 7 4,026 29.449 1,702 14.263 total 10,144 27.056 4,827 15.177

Saturnin 892 16 2009 25.994

Nesnesitelná 1,352 19.664 2,105 24.274 lehkost bytí

Výchova dívek v 745 17.446 1,517 26.754

Čechách total 2,989 17.876 5,631 25.513

However, as translators may tend to become influenced by the source language, the frequency of possessive pronouns might be higher in Czech translations of English texts than in original Czech works and lower in English translations of Czech texts than in original

English works. The following tables show the comparison of the frequencies of possessive pronouns in original English and Czech works and in English and Czech translations.

29 Table 22: Frequency of possessive pronouns in original English novels and English translations of Czech novels

Original English Frequency of poss. English translation of Frequency of poss. work of fiction pronouns per 1,000 a Czech work of pronouns per 1,000

words fiction words

Lucky Jim 23.833 Saturnin 25.994

Jude the Obscure 26.829 The Unbearable 24.274

Lightness of Being

The List of 7 29.449 Bringing Up Girls in 26.754

Bohemia total 27.056 total 25.513

Table 23: Frequency of possessive pronouns in original Czech novels and Czech translations of English novels

Original Czech work Frequency of poss. Czech translation of Frequency of poss. of fiction pronouns per 1,000 an English work of pronouns per 1,000

words fiction words

Saturnin 16 Šťastný Jim 14.138

Nesnesitelná lehkost 19.664 Neblahý Juda 16.673 bytí

Výchova dívek v 17.446 Seznam sedmi 14.263

Čechách total 17.876 total 15.177

30 Although the overall frequency of possessive pronouns is slightly lower in English translations of Czech texts than in original English texts, the difference is too small to confirm any general conclusions. Surprisingly enough, the overall frequency of possessive pronouns is higher in original Czech works than in Czech translations of English works, which could suggest the translators´ opposite tendency: in order to avoid English constructions in the

Czech text, they use possessive pronouns less frequently than it is common in Czech (this tendency can be observed e.g. in the use of adverbial participles in Czech translations of

English texts). However, the difference in frequency is also rather small to confirm any valid generalisations.

3.3 Frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in original Czech and English works of fiction

Since the term “parts of human body“ is very large, I decided to use “hand“ and

“head“, and their Czech translations “ruka“ and “hlava“ as representative samples. Again, I used three English novels in the corpus Kačenka: Lucky Jim, Jude the Obscure, and The List of 7; and three Czech novels in the corpus InterCorp: Saturnin, Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, and

Výchova dívek v Čechách.

As nouns in English are not declined, in order to collect samples of the terms “hand“ and “head“, I only had to input the terms in the corpus, including their capitalized forms, and count them. To collect the samples of the Czech terms “ruka“ and “hlava“ was slightly more problematic. I had to input all existing forms of the word “ruka“: “ruky“, “ruce“, “ruku“,

“ruko“, and “rukou“, and of the word “hlava“: “hlavy“, “hlavě“, “hlavu“, “hlavo“, and

“hlavou“. I also had to realize that the terms “ruce“, “rukou“, and “hlavy“ also stand for the plural forms and eliminate them from the overall number of samples, which I carried out manually.

31 Out of all the samples I collected, I had to eliminate the cases in which the selected word was used as a verb (e.g. “to hand someone something“, “to head in the direction of“, etc.) and as an adjective (e.g. “a hand granate“, “a head injury“, etc.). To render the calculation more accurate, I decided to collect only those samples which refer to a physical human hand or head. Therefore, I eliminated all samples in which the term denoted another entity, such as clock hands, the head of a table, parade or the state, etc. I also decided not to use body parts belonging to animals, except for the cases, in which the animal was treated as a human being, i.e. it had a name and it was referred to as “he“ or “she“. I also eliminated all the cases in which the body part was used in a fixed phrase, such as “on the other hand“, “to lend someone a hand“, “close at hand“, “the matter in hand“, “head to toe“, “I was eating my head off“, etc. in English and “přijít do ruky“, “na dosah ruky“, “vztáhnout ruku na“, “z druhé ruky“, “dát ruku do ohně“, “vzít si do hlavy“, “padlá na hlavu“, “od hlavy aţ k patě“, “poplést hlavu“, “mít střechu nad hlavou“ etc. in Czech. In some cases it was difficult to decide whether I should use the sample or not as the phrase was very close to the physical reality, such as “to get into/out of someone´s head“. However, I decided to eliminate them since they are parts of fixed phrases, in which language may be treated differently.

Furhermore, I eliminated all cases in which the body part was used figuratively, such as “the hand of Destiny“, “výrobek lidské ruky“, “skutečnost postavená na hlavu“, etc.

However, when the term “head“ (or “hlava“ in Czech) was used as a place in which thoughts exist, I decided to use it for my analysis since it is common for people to consider this a reality, not a metaphor.

Finally, I eliminated all the cases in which the body part lacked a possessor or the possessor of which was unknown to the reader and the use of a possessive pronoun was therefore impossible in both languages.

32 Having collected the samples suitable for the frequency calculation, I divided them into three groups: body parts used with a possessive pronoun, body parts used with a zero pronoun, and body parts used with a noun in the possessive case (in English expressed by a

Saxon genitive or an of-phrase, in Czech by the genitive case in a pre-modifying or post- modifying position) or the relative pronoun “whose“ (“jehoţ“, “jejíţ“, etc. in Czech). I used the third category since the possessive case (and the relative pronoun “whose“) has the same function as possessive pronouns and can replace them freely in the text. Therefore, they should be taken into consideration while studying the frequency of the possessive pronouns.

The following tables show the frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in the selected original English and Czech works of fiction.

Table 24: The use of possessive pronouns with the body part “hand“ in original English works of fiction

Original No. of No. of No. of No. of Percentage Percentage Percentage

English samples in samples samples samples of samples of samples of samples work of total used with used with a used with a used with used with a used with a fiction the zero poss. the zero poss.

possessive pronoun pronoun possessive pronoun pronoun

case case

Lucky Jim 40 2 7 31 5 % 17.5 % 77.5 %

Jude the 82 9 8 65 11 % 9.8 % 79.3 %

Obscure

The List of 143 27 53 63 18.9 % 37.1 % 44.1 %

7

Total 265 38 68 159 14.3 % 25.7 % 60 %

33 Table 25: The use of possessive pronouns with the body part “head“ in original English works of fiction

Original No. of No. of No. of No. of Percentage Percentage Percentage

English samples in samples samples samples of samples of samples of samples work of total used with used with a used with a used with used with a used with a fiction the zero poss. the zero poss.

possessive pronoun pronoun possessive pronoun pronoun

case case

Lucky Jim 90 5 6 79 5.6 % 6.7 % 87.8 %

Jude the 45 1 1 43 2.2 % 2.2 % 95.6 %

Obscure

The List of 86 4 8 74 4.7 % 9.3 % 86 %

7

Total 221 10 15 196 4.5 % 6.8 % 88.7 %

Table 26: The use of possessive pronouns with the body part “ruka“ in original Czech works of fiction

Original No. of No. of No. of No. of Percentage Percentage Percentage

Czech work samples samples samples samples of samples of samples of samples of fiction in total used with used with used with used with used with a used with a

the a zero a poss. the zero poss.

possessive pronoun pronoun possessive pronoun pronoun

case case

Saturnin 35 1 34 0 2.9 % 97.1 % 0 %

Nesnesitelná 90 3 84 3 3.3 % 93.3 % 3.3 % lehkost bytí

Výchova dívek 35 1 30 4 2.9 % 85.7 % 11.4 % v Čechách total 160 5 148 7 3.1 % 87.5 % 4.4 %

34 Table 27: The use of possessive pronouns with the body part “hlava“ in original Czech works of fiction

Original No. of No. of No. of No. of Percentage Percentage Percentage

Czech work samples samples samples samples of samples of samples of samples of fiction in total used with used with used with used with used with a used with a

the a zero a poss. the zero poss.

possessive pronoun pronoun possessive pronoun pronoun

case case

Saturnin 39 1 37 1 2.6 % 94.9 % 2.6 %

Nesnesitelná 80 10 65 5 12.5 % 81.3 % 6.3 % lehkost bytí

Výchova dívek 45 3 39 3 6.7 % 86.7 % 6.7 % v Čechách total 164 14 141 9 8.5 % 86 % 5.5 %

Table 28: The use of possessive pronouns used with the body part “hand“ in original English and Czech novels

Original Percentage of Percentage of Original Czech Percentage of Percentage of

English work of samples used samples used work of fiction samples used samples used fiction with a with the with a with the

possessive possessive case possessive possessive case

pronoun pronoun

Lucky Jim 77.5 % 5 % Saturnin 0 % 2.9 %

Jude the 79.3 % 11 % Nesnesitelná 3.3 % 3.3 %

Obscure lehkost bytí

The List of 7 44. 1 % 18.9 % Výchova dívek v 11.4 % 2.9 %

Čechách total 60 % 14.3 % total 4.4 % 3.1 %

35 Table 29: The use of possessive pronouns used with the body part “head“ in original English and Czech novels

Original Percentage of Percentage of Original Czech Percentage of Percentage of

English work of samples used samples used work of fiction samples used samples used fiction with a with the with a with the

possessive possessive case possessive possessive case

pronoun pronoun

Lucky Jim 87.8 % 5.6 % Saturnin 2.6 % 2.6 %

Jude the 95.6 % 2.2 % Nesnesitelná 6.3 % 12.5 %

Obscure lehkost bytí

The List of 7 86 % 4.7 % Výchova dívek v 6.7 % 6.7 %

Čechách total 88.7 % 4.5 % total 5.5 % 8.5 %

From the tables we can see that the frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body parts “hand“ and “head“ is considerably higher in English than in Czech, which confirms the original hypothesis. Interestingly enough, the frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body part “hand“ in English is substantially lower than the frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body part “head“. The reason may be the fact that the hand, unlike the head, is one of the body parts which occur in pairs on the human body.

Therefore, it is often used with an indefinite article in cases where the writer wants to stress the single form of the word. It usually happens in phrases such as “he raised a hand“, “he waved a hand“, etc. The high number of such phrases in The list of 7 also explains its markedly low occurence of samples used with possessive pronouns which, however, is also due to the rather high number of samples used with a noun in the possessive case.

36 3.4 Frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in original Czech and English works of fiction and their translations

To calculate the frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in

English and Czech translations I used the same method as in 3.3. Again, I collected samples from the Czech translations of Lucky Jim, Jude the Obscure, and The List if 7 (Šťasný Jim,

Neblahý Juda, and Seznam sedmi), and from the English translations of Saturnin,

Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, and Výchova dívek v Čechách (Saturnin, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, and Bringing Up Girls in Bohemia). The following tables show my results.

Table 30: The use of possessive pronouns used with the body part “ruka“ in Czech translations of English novels

Czech No. of No. of No. of No. of Percentage Percentage Percentage translation samples in samples samples samples of samples of samples of samples of the total used with used with used with used with used with a used with a

English the a zero a poss. the zero possessive work of possessive pronoun pronoun possessive pronoun pronoun fiction case case

Šťastný Jim 62 0 56 6 0 % 90.3 % 9.7 %

Neblahý 85 3 77 5 3.5 % 90.6 % 5.9 %

Juda

Seznam 84 6 73 5 7.1 % 86.9 % 6 % sedmi

Total 231 9 206 16 3.9 % 89.2 % 6.9 %

37 Table 31: The use of possessive pronouns used with the body part “hlava“ in Czech translations of English novels

Czech No. of No. of No. of No. of Percentage Percentage Percentage translation samples in samples samples samples of samples of samples of samples of the total used with used with used with used with used with a used with a

English the a zero a poss. the zero possessive work of possessive pronoun pronoun possessive pronoun pronoun fiction case case

Šťastný Jim 93 4 78 11 4.3 % 83.9 % 11.8 %

Neblahý 46 3 41 2 6.5 % 89.1 % 4.3 %

Juda

Seznam 64 0 60 4 0 % 93.8 % 6.3 % sedmi

Total 203 7 179 17 3.4 % 88.2 % 8.4 %

Table 32: The use of possessive pronouns used with the body part “hand“ in English translations of Czech novels

English translation No. of No. of No. of No. of Percentage Percentage Percentage of the Czech work samples samples samples samples of samples of samples of samples of fiction in total used with used with used used with used with a used with a

the a zero with a the zero possessive

possessive pronoun poss. possessive pronoun pronoun

case pronoun case

Saturnin 26 1 9 16 3.8 % 3.8 % 61.5 %

The Unbearable 52 5 12 35 9.6 % 23.1 % 67.3 %

Lightness of Being

Bringing Up Girls 24 1 5 18 4.2 % 20.8 % 75 % in Bohemia total 102 7 26 69 6.9 % 25.5 % 67.6 %

38 Table 33: The use of possessive pronouns used with the body part “head“ in English translations of Czech novels

English translation No. of No. of No. of No. of Percentage Percentage Percentage of the Czech work samples samples samples samples of samples of samples of samples of fiction in total used with used with used used with used with a used with a

the a zero with a the zero possessive

possessive pronoun poss. possessive pronoun pronoun

case pronoun case

Saturnin 39 3 4 32 7.7 % 10.3 % 82.1 %

The Unbearable 65 10 2 53 15.4 % 3.1 % 81.5 %

Lightness of Being

Bringing Up Girls 28 2 3 23 7.1 % 10.7 % 82.1 % in Bohemia total 132 15 9 108 11.4 % 6.8 % 81.8 %

Table 34: The use of possessive pronouns with the body part “hand“ in English translations of Czech novels and

Czech translations of English novels

Czech Percentage of Percentage English translations of Percentage Percentage of translations of samples used of samples Czech works of fiction of samples samples used

English works with a used with used with a with the of fiction possessive the possessive possessive case

pronoun possessive pronoun

case

Šťastný Jim 9.7 % 0 % Saturnin 61.5 % 3.8 %

Neblahý Juda 5.9 % 3.5 % The Unbearable 67.3 % 9.6 %

Lightness of Being

Seznam sedmi 6 % 7.1 % Bringing Up Girls in 75 % 4.2 %

Bohemia total 6.9 % 3.9 % total 67.6 % 6.9 %

39

Table 35: The use of possessive pronouns with the body part “head“ in English translations of Czech novels and

Czech translations of English novels

Czech Percentage of Percentage English translations of Percentage Percentage of translations of samples used of samples Czech works of fiction of samples samples used

English work with a used with used with a with the sof fiction possessive the possessive possessive case

pronoun possessive pronoun

case

Šťastný Jim 11.8 % 4.3 % Saturnin 82.1 % 7.7 %

Neblahý Juda 4.3 % 6.5 % The Unbearable 81.5 % 15.4 %

Lightness of Being

Seznam sedmi 6.3 % 0 % Bringing Up Girls in 82.1 % 7.1 %

Bohemia total 8.4 % 3.4 % total 81.8 % 11.4 %

The tables show that even in translations, the frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body parts “hand“ and “head“ is considerably higher in English than in Czech.

Again, we can see that the frequency of possessive pronouns used with the term “hand“ is slightly lower than the frequency of possessive pronouns used with the term “head“.

The following table shows the comparison of the frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in Czech and English original works of fiction and in Czech and English translations.

40 Table 36: Frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body part “ruka“ in original Czech works of fiction and in Czech translations of English works

Original Czech Percentage of Percentage of Czech translation Percentage of Percentage work samples used samples used of an English samples used of samples

with a possessive with the work with a possessive used with

pronoun possessive pronoun the

case possessive

case

Saturnin 0 % 2.9 % Šťastný Jim 9.7 % 0 %

Nesnesitelná 3.3 % 3.3 % Neblahý Juda 5.9 % 3.5 % lehkost bytí

Výchova dívek 11.4 % 2.9 % Seznam sedmi 6 % 7.1 % v Čechách total 4.4 % 3.1 % total 6.9 % 3.9 %

Table 37: Frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body part “hlava“ in original Czech works of fiction and in Czech translations of English works

Original Czech Percentage of Percentage of Czech translation Percentage of Percentage work samples used samples used of an English samples used of samples

with a possessive with the work with a possessive used with

pronoun possessive pronoun the

case possessive

case

Saturnin 2.6 % 2.6 % Šťastný Jim 11.8 % 4.3 %

Nesnesitelná 6.3 % 12.5 % Neblahý Juda 4.3 % 6.5 % lehkost bytí

Výchova dívek 6.7 % 6.7 % Seznam sedmi 6.3 % 0 % v Čechách total 5.5 % 8.5 % total 8.4 % 3.4 %

41 Table 38: Frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body part “hand“ in original English works of fiction and in English translations of Czech works

Original English Percentage of Percentage of English translation Percentage of Percentage work samples used samples used of a Czech work samples used of samples

with a possessive with the with a used with

pronoun possessive possessive the

case pronoun possessive

case

Lucky Jim 77.5 % 5 % Saturnin 61.5 % 3.8 %

Jude the Obscure 79.3 % 11 % The Unbearable 67.3 % 9.6 %

Lightness of Being

The List of 7 44.1 % 18.9 % Bringing Up Girls 75 % 4.2 %

in Bohemia total 60 % 14.3 % total 67.6 % 6.9 %

Table 39: Frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body part “head“ in original English works of fiction and in English translations of Czech works

Original English Percentage of Percentage of English translation Percentage of Percentage work samples used samples used of a Czech work samples used of samples

with a possessive with the with a used with

pronoun possessive possessive the

case pronoun possessive

case

Lucky Jim 87.8 % 5.6 % Saturnin 82.1 % 7.7 %

Jude the Obscure 95.6 % 2.2 % The Unbearable 81.5 % 15.4 %

Lightness of Being

The List of 7 86 % 4.7 % Bringing Up Girls 82.1 % 7.1 %

in Bohemia total 88.7 % 4.5 % total 81.8 % 11.4 %

42 The results show that the frequency of possessive pronouns used with the selected body parts is approximately the same in Czech original works of fiction and Czech translations of English works of fiction, with the exception of Šťastný Jim, in which the frequency is noticeably higher. This may be the result of the translator´s idiosyncracy.

The frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in English translations of Czech works of fiction is generally slightly lower than in original English works. As I was collecting the samples, I noticed a slightly higher occurence of phrases such as “he was hit on the head“, “he took her by the hand“, and “with a wave of the hand“ in the translations. Although the phrases are grammatically correct, these constructions are not as common in English as in Czech. Therefore, the translator´s tendency to use Czech constructions in English may have resulted in a lower frequency of possessive pronouns.

43 4 Translating possessive pronouns – practical analysis

4.1 Translating possessive pronouns used with parts of human body from English into

Czech

4.1.1 Introduction

For my analysis, I used literary texts available in the parallel corpus Kačenka. Since there is no substantial difference in the use of possessive pronouns in the individual texts, I did not choose any particular texts but rather used the whole corpus. However, it would be impossible to work with all the results offered by Kačenka, and therefore I randomly selected several pages for each data.

Since the term “parts of human body“ is very large, I decided to work only with those most frequently used in speech and writing. I selected the following parts of body to base my analysis on: “head“, “eyes“, “hand“ and “leg“. Also the choice of the possessive pronouns was based on their frequency in common texts, and therefore I mostly worked with the pronouns “my“, “your“, “his“, and “her“. I used various combinations of the selected body parts and possessive pronouns, and from all the pages with results which Kačenka offered, I randomly selected 2 – 5 pages, depending on the total number and variety of results.

In many cases, the results were not suitable for my analysis as translators used different words and phrases to express the original meaning, omitting the pronoun and the body part in question. This very often happened with the construction verb + body part, in which the body part was a direct object and the verb expressed some kind of movement. In

Czech it is often possible to use only a single intransitive verb which itself contains the meaning of both the movement and the body part, such as “vzhlédl“ for “he raised his head“,

“přikývl“ for “he nodded his head“, “ohlédl se“ for “he turned his head“, “uchopil“ for “he

44 laid his hand on“, etc. The body part also disappeared in the translations of English fixed phrases when there were no corresponding phrases in Czech. Thus, “Daze my eyes!“ was translated as “Propána!“, “that´s come to my head“ as “napadlo mě“, “to get my hand in“ as

“abych se zapracovala“, “I was eating my head off“ as “darmo jsem vyjídala“, etc.

As I have mentioned above, one of the assumptions I started my analysis with was that since we translate meaning, not words, the possessive relationship expressed by a possessive pronoun in English can be expressed in the Czech translation by any other means which are common to convey possession in Czech. According to Piťha, this is realized by some verbs

(see above), the verb “mít“( = to have), possessive pronouns, the genitive case, prepositional cases and the dative case. In my analysis, I have found evidence for most of the above stated options. The following table shows how the possessive relationship, in English expressed by a possessive pronoun, was translated into Czech:

Table 40: Various translations of the possessive relationship, in English expressed by a possessive pronoun, into Czech

ENGLISH ORIGINAL CZECH TRANSLATION MEANS OF EXPRESSING

POSSESSION IN CZECH this is my hand to je moje ruka possessive pronoun his eyes were bloodshot oči měl podlité krví the verb “mít“ (= to have) took the pot from his hand vzal mu hrnek z ruky dative case his alert eye percieved the jeho bystré oko postřehlo, jak genitive case top of her head se nad plotem zahrady rychle

sem a tam míhá temeno

Arabelliny hlavy turning her head aside s odvrácenou hlavou prepositional case

45

However, I have not found any evidence of translating the possessive relationship by means of verbs expressing possession other than “mít“ (= to have). Since I was limited by the fact that I only analysed possessive pronouns used with parts of human body, this could be a subject of a further investigation.

The use of other means of expressing possession partly explains why possessive pronouns are used less frequently in the Czech translations than in the original English texts.

However, there are many cases in which the possessive pronoun in an English sentence results in a zero pronoun in the corresponding Czech translation without using any other indicators of possession. Thus, the phrase “he threw back his head“ was translated as “zaklonil hlavu“ without clearly stating in Czech whose head he threw back. The Czech language relies on the common sense and context to explain whose part of body is mentioned in the text, and finds the use of possessive pronouns in these situations redundant. It is not redundant in English since English grammar does not allow for the use a singular countable noun without a determiner; thus, even if the possessive pronoun were omitted in English, it would have to be replaced by an article, which would be no more economical than the possessive pronoun.

The main aim of my analysis was to discover not only how English possessive pronouns are translated into Czech, but also in which cases the Czech translation uses a possessive pronoun, in which cases it uses a personal pronoun in the dative case, etc. I based my analysis on the assumption that it depends on the syntactical position of the possessive pronoun, or rather of the part of body which the pronoun modifies, and also on whether the subject of the sentence is the possessor of the body part or not. However, as I discovered later, the situation was much more complex. Very important proved to be the semantical meaning of the verb and its other grammatical properties (such as whether the verb was transitive or intransitive, whether it was reflexive, etc.), whether the possessive pronoun was stressed due

46 to the emotional connotation of the phrase, whether the possessive pronoun and the body part appeared in a fixed phrase, etc. Another factor which played an important role in the translation was of course the translator themselves and their knowledge of the Czech grammatical system, ability not to become influenced by the source language, etc.

One of the main problems I faced was the fact that body parts in the Czech translation in some cases appeared in a different position than in the original English sentence. It caused difficulties in classifying the results into categories which were based on the English constructions. However, I decided to present these cases at the end of the category corresponding to the original English construction with a reference to the category corresponding to the construction in the translation.

The analysis is not exhaustive. I used approximately 500 samples to construct the categories and there would certainly be more of them if I used more samples. However, the analysis shows the most common examples of how possessive pronouns are used in an

English sentence and translated into Czech and also some less common ones.

To render my analysis as clear as possible, I did not enumarate the categories as chapters of my thesis but used a different numeration starting with the abbreviation “CAT“ (= category). Thus I could start the numeration from number 1 and avoid long confusing lines of numbers.

The headline of each category states the main characteristics of the position in which the body part appears. It also states all other characteristics of the sentence / clause in which the body part appears relevant to the translation of possessive pronouns.

47 4.1.2 Analysis

Having collected and analysed all the samples, I classified them into the following categories:

CAT 1 The body part is the subject of the sentence.

CAT 1.1 The verb is “to be“, followed by an adjective phrase or past participle

In the Czech translation the possessor of the body part usually becomes the subject of the sentence, the verb “to be“ is replaced with “mít“ (=to have) and the body part becomes a direct object, preceded by an adjective phrase. Possessive pronoun in English results in zero pronoun in Czech: his eyes were bloodshot oči měl podlité krví his eyes were red Riki měl zrudlé oči his hands were cold and damp měl studené a vlhké ruce

The cases in which the translator decided to preserve the original construction and the possessive pronoun are rare and may be the result of the influence of the SL or simply an example of a construction used less frequently in Czech:

His black hair was cropped short, his head Jeho černé vlasy byly krátce přistřiţeny, jeho was bony. hlava byla kostnatá.

Translated with a different construction:

In one case, the translator decided to leave the body part as the subect, replaced the verb “to be“ with a different verb and the adjective with an adverb He preserved the possessive pronoun; however, as the verb expresses an action uncontrollable by the possessor

48 of the body part, more common practice is to replace the possessive pronoun with a personal pronoun in the dative case (see CAT 1.2): his eyes were very angry jeho oči planuly velmi hněvivě

In a phrase describing colour, the translation had to follow the Czech habit of saying that an object “has“ a colour, unlike in English where an object “is“ a colour. Thus the body part remained the subject of the sentence and the verb was changed into “mít“ (= to have).

The use of a transitive verb may have been the reason why the possessive pronoun was preserved in the translation: what colour your eyes were jakou barvu mají vaše oči

CAT 1.2 The verb is intransitive and expresses actions uncontrollable by the possessor of the body part.

In the Czech translation, the possessive pronoun is usually replaced by a corresponding personal pronoun in the dative case: his eyes moistened oči mu zvlhly his eyes glare oči mu zasvítily his eyes blazing oči mu plály he felt his head spin cítil, ţe se mu točí hlava until his head lay aţ by mu hlava zapadla

The cases in which the translators decided to preserve the possessive pronoun in the original construction were rare and may be the result of the influence of the SL:

" One moment , " she said . Her eyes closed ; Její oči se zavřely; opět zaklonila hlavu. her head angled back again .

49 Again and again and again she struck , and Opět a opět útočila Nagaina a pokaţdé each time her head came with a whack on the udeřila její hlava ranou do rohoţky na matting verandě

Translated with a different construction:

In some cases, the translators decided that the initiator of the activity was not the body part but its possessor and changed the sentence accordingly - with the possessor as the subject and the body part as the object. The result was zero pronoun (as in CAT 2.1.1):

" One moment , " she said . Her eyes closed ; Její oči se zavřely; opět zaklonila hlavu. her head angled back again . each time her head came with a whack on the pokaţdé udeřila hlavou o rohoţ matting his eyes twinkled poškuboval okem

If the translator replaced the intransitive verb with a transitive one, the possessive pronoun was preserved: knowing that his eyes would light on that s vědomím , ţe jeho oči ty končiny uţ nikdy scene no more nespatří my eyes and senses opening on London moje oči a smysly začaly vnímat streets

CAT 1.3 The body part is a subject in a supplementive clause, in which the verb was omitted.

As this construction is very similar to so-called “with-phrases“ (see CAT 3), the translators often decided to use a “with-phrase“ instead of the supplementive clause.

50 However, some translators preserved the original structure. In both cases, the result was zero pronoun: translated with the original construction: his eyes wet oči zalité slzami

translated with a “with-phrase“ (as in CAT 3.2): his eyes on Dixon s očima upřenýma na Dixona his eyes still closed s očima stále ještě zavřenýma his head spinning s hlavou ve víru her head bowed forward s hlavou v myšlenkách schýlenou her head bowed forward s hlavou nakloněnou dopředu her head bowed s hlavou skloněnou his eyes resting on things s očima upřenýma na věci

In some cases, the Czech translation replaced the –ed clause and the –ing clause with a full clause in which the possessor of the body part became the subject and the body part the object. The result was zero pronoun in Czech (as in CAT 2.1.1):

She talked fast and fluently, moving about a Mluvila rychle a plynně, poposedajíc na lot on the chair - arm, her legs kicking opěradle, trhala nohama, jako by jí někdo straight as if hammered on the knee, her head klepal kladívkem do kolena, pohazovala jerking to restore invisible strands of hair hlavou, aby odstranila s čela neviditelnou

kadeř her head snugged between her shoulders hlavu přikrčila mezi ramena

51 One translator decided to replace the original construction with a full clause, in which the body part became a part of a prepositinal phrase functioning as an adverbial of place with the possessor of the body part as the subject. The result was also a zero pronoun (as in CAT

4.1.2): his head fairly clear still v hlavě měl úplně jasno

CAT 2 The body part is the direct object of the sentence.

CAT 2.1 The subject of the sentence is the possessor of the body part.

CAT 2.1.1 The verb expresses some kind of activity performed with the body part or it expresses existence or relationship between the subject and the object, i.e. it is one of so called “existence verbs“ (e.g. “to have“) (Biber 364).

In the Czech translation, the body part (i.e. the object of the sentence) may be either in the accusative case or in the instrumental case, depending on the verb. In both cases, possessive pronoun in English results in zero pronoun in Czech:

accusative case: he threw back his head zaklonil hlavu he put his head down svěsil hlavu raising his head zdvihnuv hlavu laying his hand poloţil ruku she had her head in her hands měla hlavu v dlaních she held her head erect měla hlavu hrdě vztyčenou

Gertrude held her head erect Gertruda drţela hlavu vzhůru

52 Gertrude held her head erect Gertruda drţela hlavu vzpřímenu she kept her head bent sklonila hlavu instrumental case: nodded his head in the direction ukázal mu hlavou na he threw his head mrštil hlavou man clap his hand muţ pleskl rukou

With some verbs, the Czech translation requires the use of a personal reflexive pronoun in the dative case “si“ or in the accusative case “se“: leaned his head upon opřel si hlavu o she inclined her head upon his shoulder se mu opřela hlavou o rameno she bent her head against the doorpost opřela se hlavou o rám dveří

Nagaina spun round to keep her head to his Nagaina se stáčela a přetáčela , aby se head. udrţela čelem proti čelu jeho.

Arabella inclined her head Arabella se uklonila hlavou

Dry your eyes Utřete si oči

If the body part was an object in a supplementive –ing clause, the translator usually decided to use a full subject – verb – object clause. Only in rare cases the translator used an adverbial participle or a “with-phrase“ instead. In all three cases the result was also zero pronoun in Czech:

translated with a subject – verb – object clause: shutting his eyes na okamţik zavřel oči shaking his head zavrtěl hlavou

53 shaking his head pokývl hlavou without turning his head ani nepohnul hlavou holding up his hand Mauglí zdvihl ruku

translated with an adverbial participle:

Lowering his eyes from these memorials Odpoutav oči od památníků keeping his eyes on Dixon nespouštěje z Dixona oči wagging his head potřásaje hlavou

translated with a “with-phrase“ (as in CAT 3.2): turning her head aside s odvrácenou hlavou shutting his eyes se zavřenýma očima

CAT 2.1.2 The verb expresses some kind of action performed by the possessor of the body part using another instrument, not the body part in question. The body part is the recipient of the action.

In the Czech translation, the possessive pronoun is replaced by a corresponding personal reflexive pronoun in the dative case: rubbing his head třel si čelo to shield his eyes from hers aby si před ţenou chránil oči after wiping his eyes kdyţ si nejdřív otřel oči still nursing his leg si ještě pořád třel nohu

With some verbs, usually those expressing some kind of harm aimed at the possessor of the body part, the translation requires the use of a reflexive verb, which clearly states

54 whose body part is the recipient of the action and no other indicators are therefore necessary.

The body part becomes a part of a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place.

The result is a zero pronoun in Czech: he smote his leg pleskl se do stehna smacking his leg švihl se po holeni

Only in rare cases the possessive pronoun was preserved. This usually happened when there were two body parts in question, which may have caused confusion:

She laid her hand on his Poloţila svou ruku na jeho laying his hands on hers poloţil svou ruku na její she ran her hand secretly along his side přitiskla svou ruku tajně k jeho boku

The possessive pronoun was also preserved in a clause with the verb “to will“, the

Czech equivalent of which “ovládnout“ cannot be used with a reflexive pronoun in the dative case. Therefore, other indicators of the possessive relationship had to be used to state whose body part was the recipient of the action. The verb also does not express a physical movement but a mental activity:

Dixon willed his hand Dixon ovládl svou ruku

Finally, the possessive pronoun may have been preserved as the result of the influence of the SL or simply as an example of a less frequent construction in Czech: trying gently to liberate his hand snaţil se nenápadně osvobodit svou ruku

Translated with a different construction:

55 A sentence with the pattern subject – make – object – adjective was translated with a different pattern and the verb “mít“ (= to have), which itself expresses a possessive relationship and no other indicators were therefore necessary. The result was zero pronoun in

Czech (as in CAT 2.1.1):

Don ' t make your eyes red Nebreč , ať nemáš červený voči

CAT 2.1.3 The verb is a sensory verb, such as “see“, “feel“, “smell“, “look“ etc.

The possessive pronoun in the Czech translation is usually preserved: he could no longer see his hand before him ţe uţ nevidí svoji nataţenou ruku

Translated with a different construction:

If the verb occurs in the pattern subject – verb – object – verb, the Czech translation usually changes the pattern into subject – verb – that-clause, with the body part becoming the subject of the that-clause. The result is therefore a personal pronoun in the dative case (as in

CAT 1.2): he felt his head spin cítil , ţe se mu točí hlava

CAT 2.2 The subject of the sentence is not the possessor of the body part.

CAT 2.2.1 The verb expresses an activity aimed at the body part and therefore also its possessor.

In the Czech translation, the possessive pronoun is replaced by a corresponding personal pronoun in the dative case: she´d shaken his hand off setřásla mu ruku helped to clear his head mu pročistilo hlavu

56 made his head reel the furthest mu zamotalo hlavu ještě víc stroked and fondled his head hladila a laskala mu hlavičku

He went up to seize her hand Vykročil jí stisknout ruku

Some Czech verbs require the personal pronoun in the accusative case and the body part becomes a part of a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place. The activity is therefore not aimed at the body part but its possessor:

He reached out and took her hand Vzal ji za ruku he had occasionally to take her hand Juda Arabellu1 vzal chvílemi za ruku

It hurts my eyes Píchá mě do očí

When Baloo hurt my head Kdyţ mne Balú udeřil do hlavy

Mr. Fawley hold my hand mě dlouho drţel za ruku

The cases in which the translator decided to preserve the possessive pronoun are rare and may be the result of the influence of the SL or simply an example of a construction used less frequently in Czech: his stomach seemed to swell so as to start jako by se mu ţaludek rozrůstal do takových enclosing his head within it. rozměrů, aţ pohltil i jeho hlavu. he slid his arm beneath her shoulders. objal její ramena

If the translator used a reflexive verb in Czech requiring a preposition, the possessive pronoun was preserved. The verb does not express a physical movement but a mental activity:

Blame my eyes hněvejte se na mé oči

1 The personal pronoun is replaced with a proper noun, which is a case of explicitation

57 Never mind my eyes S mýma očima si nelamte hlavu

translated with a different construction: hat made my head swim aţ se mi ze vší rychlosti a hukotu točila as in CAT 1.2.

hlava you hurt my head jen mě z tebe bolí hlava as in CAT 1.2

CAT 3 The body part is a part of a prepositional phrase starting with the preposition

“with“ (a “with phrase“).

CAT 3.1 The “with phrase“ is an adverbial of manner. The body part is an instrument used by the possessor of the body part to perform some kind of action.

In the Czech translation, the body part is in the instrumental case and the possessive pronoun in English becomes zero pronoun in Czech: muffling his mouth with his hand zakrývaje si ústa rukou

Toomai made a sign with his hand dal mu tedy znamení rukou shaded his eyes with his hand zaclonil si rukou oči driving the smoke away with his hand rozháněl přitom rukou kouř

She opened the door and gestured with her Otevřela dveře a ukázala na ně pohybem head hlavy

CAT 3.2 The “with phrase“ is an adverbial of manner or a postmodifier in a noun phrase.

The adverbial shows accompanitment (Biber 778) and conveys the manner of the action performed by the possessor of the body part. The postmodifier desribes a noun

58 which is the possessor of the body part. The postmodifier may express the state in which the body part is (by means of an adjective, adverb, past participle or an –ing form) or its location or the location of objects belonging to the possessor of the body part.

There are two usual ways of translation into Czech:

1. The translation preserves the English syntax and the body part remains a part of a prepositional phrase. The possessive pronoun in English becomes zero pronoun in Czech: remained with his head buried setrvával s hlavou zabořenou ate with his head dropped pojedl se sklopenou hlavou

Morel with his head cocked Morel s hlavou nakloněnou with his eyes dark and bewildered s tmavýma vyjevenýma očima with his hand to his hat s rukou na klobouku with tears of rage in his eyes se slzami v očích with his candle in his hand se svíčkou v ruce she walked with her head up vykračovala si jen se vztyčenou hlavou

2. The translation replaces the prepositional phrase with a clause, in which the body part becomes a direct object and the verb is “mít“ (= to have). The verb “mít“ may be omitted.

The possessive pronoun in English becomes zero pronoun in Czech, its function being conveyed by the verb “mít“: with his hand on the throttle na brzdě ruku with his eyes shut maje oči zavřeny with the poker in his hand pohrabáč v ruce with a wig on his head na hlavě paruku

59

translated with a different construction:

In rare cases, the prepositional phrase in English is replaced by a clause with the possessor of the body as the subject and the body part as the direct object. The result was zero pronoun in Czech (as in CAT 2.1.1):

They worked, he talking, she with her head Dali se do práce ; on vysvětloval a ona down on the book skláněla hlavu nad knihu

They worked, he talking, she with her head Dali se do práce ; on vysvětloval a ona down on the book sklonila hlavu nad knihu

CAT 4 The body part is a part of another prepositional phrase

CAT 4.1 The prepositional phrase is an adverbial of place

CAT 4.1.1 The subject is the possessor of the body part, the verb is “to have“, the body part indicates the location of something belonging to the possessor.

Since the possession is already expressed by the verb “to have“, it would be redundant in Czech to use a possessive pronoun. Therefore the result is zero pronoun in the translation: he had never had a sword in his hand nikdy předtím neměl kord v ruce

She wore an old long coat , which did not Měla na sobě dlouhý starý kabát , který jí suit her , and had a little wrap over her head. vůbec neslušel , a na hlavě jakousi roušku.

CAT 4.1.2 The subject is the possessor of the body part, the body part indicates the direction or location of the actions performed by its possessor.

60 In the Czech translation, the function of the possessive pronoun may be coneyed by the personal reflexive pronoun in the dative case “si“, or the result is zero pronoun. The use of “si“ depends on whether the verb can be used as reflexive or not:

zero pronoun: trying to bring his nose up between his eyes pokoušeje se zároveň pokrčit nos aţ k očím raising a full half pint glass to his mouth zdvihal plnou sklenici piva k ústům taking the pin out of his mouth vzal špendlík z úst he put the flower in his mouth pak jej vstrčil do úst

(she) ...came holding it in her hand drţíc jej v ruce

“si“ put his hat on his head nasadit si na hlavu klobouk put the collar of his dinner jacket over his přetáhnout si límec kabátu přes hlavu head

Putting her apron over her head Přehodila si zástěru přes hlavu flipped it deftly in his hand si ji nadhodil v ruce

Pull that cap off your eyes Dej si tu čepici z očí

If the verb was sensory, the possessive pronoun was preserved:

I can see inside my head Mohu viděti uvnitř své hlavy

Translated with a different structure: kept the bag in contact with his leg tašku uloţil tak, aby se as in CAT 2.2.1

neustále dotýkala jeho nohy

61 tears came into my eyes aţ mi oči slzely as in CAT 1.2

CAT 4.1.3 The subject is not the possessor of the body part, the body part indicates the location or direction of actions performed by the subject.

CAT 4.1.3.1 The actions are aimed directly at the possessor of the body part and express some kind of harm.

The Czech translation usually replaces the possessive pronoun with a corresponding personal pronoun in the accusative case: made a peck into his hand ho klovla do dlaně

CAT 4.1.3.2 The actions are not directly aimed at the possessor but take place inside of the body part or at least touching the body part.

The Czech translation usually replaces the possessive pronoun with a corresponding personal pronoun in the dative case: dusty thrudding in his head mu pulsovalo tupým duněním v hlavě the pain that slopped through his head bolest, která mu prolétla hlavou his cigarette, still burning, was cuffed out of cigareta mu vypadla z ruky his hand forcing sheets of paper into his hand vecpali mu ty papíry do rukou looked into his eyes pohlíţela mu do očí took the pot from his hand vzal mu hrnek z ruky

62 The cases in which the translator chose to preserve the possessive pronoun are rare and may be the result of the influence of the SL or simply an example of a construction used less frequently in Czech: claiming that occasionally one of these Holy prohlašovala, ţe tito svatí mezi svatými of Holies stepped inside her head občas vstupovali do její hlavy

Put dead bats on my head Dej mrtvé netopýry na moji hlavu

Some differences occurred in the following cases: a) The verb was sensory.

The possessive pronoun was preserved: she saw a deep shadow in his eyes viděla hluboké stíny v jeho očích had looked better in his hand v jeho ruce vypadala lépe

b) The verb was “to be“, the subject of the sentence being the entity located in the place described by the body part.

The translators usually changed the whole structure of the sentence, so that the possessor of the body part became the subject, the verb “to be“ was replaced with different verbs and the original subject became an object. The result was zero pronoun in Czech (as in

CAT 4.1.1 and CAT 4.1.2):

There was a lit taper in his hand V ruce drţel tenký zapalovací knot

There was a lit taper in his hand V ruce drţel tenký zapalovací knot the razor was in my hand Měl jsem břitvu v ruce

It is in my head Mám v hlavě

63

c) The subject of the sentence was a so called “dummy subject“, i.e. a semantically empty or non-referential subject (Biber 125), and the verb was in the infinitive form.

The Czech translation replaced the possessive pronoun with a zero pronoun: it's a nasty thing to get a glass of beer in your není to nic příjemného dostat sklenici piva do eyes očí a nasty thing to get a glass of beer in your je to ošklivé dostat sklenicí piva do očí eyes

Translated with a different construction: it will be with Shere Khan's ponesu Šir Chanovu kůţi na as in CAT 4.1.2 hide on my head hlavě it will be with Shere Khan's přijdu s Šér Chánovou kůţí as in CAT 3.2 hide on my head na hlavě she saw a deep shadow in his viděla, ţe má v očích as in CAT 2.1.1 eyes hluboké stíny an air of gloom and a jak se zdá, alespoň mým The body part in the dreariness seems, in my eyes očím translation is an indirect

object in a dummy subject

sentence, the possessive

pronoun is preserved.

64 CAT 4.1.3.3 The actions take place outside the body part without touching it.

The Czech translation usually preserves the possessive pronoun. Only with some verbs it was replaced with a personal pronoun in the dative case:

possessive pronoun:

Sue , evidently just come in , as standing Sue zřejmě právě přišla a s kloboukem na with her hat on in this front parlour or sitting hlavě stála v této přední jizbě či obývacím

- room , whose walls were lined with pokoji , jehoţ stěny byly obloţeny dubovým wainscoting of panelled oak reaching from dřevem od podlahy aţ ke stropu , na němţ se floor to ceiling , the latter being crossed by kousek nad Suinou hlavou protínaly hrubě huge moulded beams only a little way above opracované trámy. her head .

As he was lighting his cigarette , the bell of Zatím co si zapaloval , na dva kroky od jeho the phone went off within two feet of his hlavy zadrnčel telefon head; his mouth was on her throat. spočinul ústy na jejím hrdle a roaring voice began to sing behind one of v jednom z oken nad jeho hlavou the windows above his head the same nutritive were to be seen round his stopy téhoţ pokrmu byly patrny i kolem jeho mouth úst his mouth was on her throat dotýkal se ústy jejího hrdla

65 personal pronoun in the dative case: hanging switch above his head tlačítka, jeţ mu viselo nad hlavou

CAT 4.2 The prepositional phrase is a postmodifier in a noun phrase

The possessive pronoun was preserved in the Czech translation: the fury in his eyes roused her ji vztek v jeho očích zarazil roused to a frenzy the timpanist in his head vystupňovalo řádění činelisty v jeho hlavě

k zuřivosti

The possessive pronoun was replaced by a zero pronoun in the sentence, where the noun phrase was a part of a multiple subject and the possessive pronoun occured in the preceding noun phrase. Its occurrence in the following noun phrase would be therefore redundant: the childishly expectant look in his eyes v jeho vţdy tak jemných rysech a dětsky

tázavý pohled očí

CAT 4.4 The prepositional phrase is a part of a supplementive adverbial –ed clause or – ing clause.

The verb originally in an –ed clause was replaced with the verb “mít“ (=to have) in the full clause. However, the verb “mít“ was omitted. The result was zero pronoun in the Czech translation:

a light hat tossed on her head na hlavě lehký klobouk

66 CAT 5. The body part is a part of an of-phrase.

Of-phrases are for semantical reasons very often translated to Czech with only one word. The following table shows the various one-word translations of the phrases “back of her head“, “top of her head“, and “palm of her hand“:

Table 41: Various Czech one-word translations of English of-phrases

PHRASE NUMBER OF TRANSLATED AS NUMBER OF

SAMPLES CASES back of her head 6 týl 2

šíje 1

temeno 2 back of his head 8 týl 3

temeno 1

hlava + adverbial 2

“vzadu“ top of her head 8 týl 3

temeno 4

hlava 1 top of his head 4 hlava 2 palm of her hand 4 dlaň 3 palm of his hand 7 dlaň 5

If the translator preserved the original construction, the of-phrase was translated with a noun phrase in the genitive case and the possessive pronoun was usually preserved:

67 she peered at Mowgli under the palm of her prohlíţela Maugliho pode dlaní své pravice hand the whites of her eyes were bělmo jejích očí je

He remembered... the distressing clarity of na zoufalou jasnost jejího pohledu her eyes

If I could write the beauty of your eyes I kdybych popsal půvaby tvých očí

He had time to learn every detail of her hand aby poznal kaţdou podrobnost její ruky

One motion of my hand Jediný pohyb mé ruky settling on the lashes of her eyes začala se zachycovat na řasách Tessiných2

očí steadiness in the set of her eyes indicated naznačovala jakási pevnost v jejím pohledu the look at the back of her eyes [...] arrested pohled z hlubin jejích očí [...] ten ho tak him zarazil the slight blueness of the whites of her eyes namodralá barva bělma jejích očí jí dodává helped made Dixon want to call attention [...] to the vyvolal v Dixonovi přání upozornit ho na [...] peculiarity of his eyes zvláštní vzhled jeho očí his alert eye percieved the top of her head jeho bystré oko postřehlo , jak se nad plotem moving quickly hither and hither zahrady rychle sem a tam míhá temeno

Arabelliny3 hlavy

The possessive pronoun was replaced by a personal pronoun in the dative case when the noun modified by the of-phrase was in the position corresponding to the above stated category

CAT 4.1.3.2 (the noun is in a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place, the

2 The personal pronoun is replaced with a proper noun, which is a case of explicitation 3 The personal pronoun is replaced with a proper noun, which is a case of explicitation

68 subject of the sentence is not the possessor of the body part and the actions are not directly aimed at the possessor but take place inside of the body part or at least touching the body part):

She dug her nails into the back of his hand Zaryla mu nehty do hřbetu ruky imprinting a scarcely perceptible little kiss pak mu vtiskla na temeno hlavy upon the top of his head

translated with a different construction:

The possessive pronoun was replaced by a zero pronoun:

- when the noun modified by the of-phrase was a direct object in the sentence and the subject was not the possessor of the body part. The translator used the noun phrase in the instrumental case (as in CAT 3.1):

She gave a furious downward wave of her Odpověděla mu prudkým mávnutím ruky hand

Tess [...] withdrew the large dark gaze of her okamţitě uhnula pohledem velkých tmavých eyes očí

- when the of-phrase was changed into a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place (as in CAT 4.1.2):

Jude had recovered somewhat from the kdyţ se Juda trochu zbavil hrozného bodání fearful throbbing of his eyes v očích a mozku

- when the noun modified by the of-phrase became an object of the translated clause, in which the subject was the possessor of the body part (as in CAT 3.1): the back of his head against her cheek dotýkaje se temenem hlavy její tváře

69 CAT 6 The body part is a complement

The possessive pronoun is preserved in the Czech translation:

That´s her head. To je její hlava.

There' s my hand. Zde je má ruka.

This is my hand. To je moje ruka.

CAT 7 The body part is a part of an exclamative clause

Since exclamative clauses have a strong emotional connotation and the possessive pronoun is therefore stressed, the Czech translation usually preserves it: o my leg! ach moje noha!

CAT 8 The body part is a part of a fixed phrase.

If the body part occurs in a fixed phrase, its translation depends on whether a similar phrase exists in Czech. If it does, it is a matter of habit which indicator of the possessive relationship is used in the phrase. The table below shows several fixed phrases which exist both in English and in Czech and are translated accordingly. The translations of possessive pronouns in fixed phrases do not usually correspond to the above stated categories. The reason may be the fact, that fixed phrases usually have a figurative meaning and a strong emotional connotation.

70 Table 42: Translation of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in fixed phrases

ENGLISH PHRASE IN THE CZECH PHRASE IN THE RESULT

ORIGINAL TEXT TRANSLATION the enmity of our parents gave a Nepřátelství našich rodičů ti v mých possessive piquancy to you in my eyes očích dodávalo zajímavosti pronoun

Not in my eyes! V mých očích rozhodně ne

Not in my eyes! V mých očích ne! who lives but in your eyes která ţije jedině ve vašich očích

I ' ll eat my head Sním svou hlavu reflexive

I ' ll eat my head tak sním svou hlavu possessive

I ' ll eat my head tak sním svou hlavu pronoun

I ' ll eat my head nebo sním svou hlavu had serious thoughts of eating my Uţ jsem váţně pomýšlel na to, ţe head dnes sním svou hlavu

I for his falsehood with my head A já za jeho prolhanost svou hlavou reflexive

possessive

pronoun

I am constantly before your eyes kdyţ mě budeš mít pořád na očích the verb “mít“

How can I help seeing what is in Co mám dělat , abych neviděl , co (= to have) + front of my eyes? mám před očima? zero pronoun

I only see what ' s under my eyes Vidím jen to, co mám před očima

I shall be glad to have him away Budu šťastná , kdyţ ho budu mít the verb “mít“ from my eyes nadobro z očí (= to have) +

zero pronoun

I have, too , this grand hobby in my Mám také hlavu plnou svého the verb “mít“

71 head zamilovaného psaní (= to have) +

zero pronoun

I won ' t lose my head nechci ztratit hlavu zero pronoun

I ' ll make him eat from my hand Budu ho krmit z ruky zero pronoun could hardly believe my eyes nechtěl jsem ani věřit vlastním očím zero pronoun

+ the

intensifier

“vlastní“ (=

own)

Do you believe what your eyes saw co jste na vlastní oči viděl ve svém zero pronoun in that room pokoji? + the

intensifier

“vlastní“ (=

own)

Party told you to reject the evidence Strana člověka nabádá, aby odmítl zero pronoun of your eyes and ears svědectví vlastních očí a uší . + the

intensifier

“vlastní“ (=

own)

CAT 9 Non-categorized cases

The possessive pronoun was also replaced by a zero pronoun when the translator changed the specific meaning of the sentence into a generic meaning, which resulted in undertranslation:

72 an area about the size of the palm of his hand scházel i kus zvíci přibliţně jedné dlaně in the main part of the top blanket was missing

But if it's only his leg it's not so bad kdyţ je to jenom noha, není to ještě tak zlé

73 4.2 Translating possessive pronouns used with parts of human body from Czech into

English

4.2.1 Introduction

The aim of this analysis is to discover whether the conclusions drawn in the previous chapter also function in the opposite direction, i.e. whether parts of human body used in

Czech with a zero pronoun, personal pronoun in the dative and the accusative case, the verb

“mít“ (= to have), and finally a possessive pronoun are translated into English with a possessive pronoun when used in the contexts corresponding to the cathegories in 4.1.

For my analysis I used three Czech novels and their English translations available in the parallel corpus InterCorp: Saturnin, Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí, and Výchova dívek v Čechách. As words denoting parts of human body I used the terms “hlava“ and “ruka“ and all its existing forms. Out of all the samples offered by the corpus I eliminated Czech plural forms being the same as declined singular forms (such as “hlavy“, “ruce“, etc.). Furthemore I eliminated all samples in which the terms “hlava“ and “ruka“ were translated differently, not using the body parts whatsoever. However, I used the samples in which they were translated with similar terms, such as “arm“ and “wrist“, etc., and cases in which a singular noun was translated with a plural form. In English translations of Czech texts, as well as in Czech translations of English texts, some phrases expressed in Czech with a verb and a noun, such as

“pokývnul jsem hlavou“ (= “I nodded my head“) were translated only with a verb into

English (e.g. “I nodded“). This often happened with the phrase “vzít do ruky“ (= to take into someone´s hand) which was usually translated as “to pick up“.

I also eliminated all samples in which the use of possessive pronoun was impossible both in the Czech original and in the English translation, i.e. cases in which the part of the

74 body lacked a possessor and cases in which the body parts were used with genitive forms or a demonstrative pronoun in the original.

I collected approximately 200 samples and classified them into 5 sections according to whether the part of human body was in the Czech original used with a possessive pronoun, the verb “mít“ (= to have), a personal pronoun in the dative case, a personal pronoun in the accusative case, or a zero pronoun. Furthermore, I used categories from the preceding chapter to describe how the part of human body was dealt with in the English translation. In cases where I discovered parallels with the categories from 4.1, I put a reference to the particular category at the end of the description.

4.2.2 Parts of human body used with a possessive pronoun in Czech

All body parts used with a possessive pronoun in the Czech original were translated with a possessive pronoun into English:

Její hlava spočívala Her head rested moje levá ruka s široce roztaţenými prsty my left hand with fingers extended shot up vylétla

Nahmatala mou ruku She felt for my hand vtiskl v té chvíli tvář do polštáře vedle její He pressed his face into the pillow beside hlavy her head

nevzdálila tvář od jeho hlavy did not move her face from his head

75 4.2.3 Parts of human body used with the verb “mít“ (= to have) in Czech

As I have already mentioned, the verb “mít“ conveys a possessive relationship.

Therefore, if a sentence contains the verb “mít“ and the body part is an object or a part of a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place modifying the object, no other indicators of possession are necessary in Czech. However, this type of sentences is usually translated into English with a verb which does not convey possession; therefore, the possessive pronoun is usually used in the translation (as in CAT 2.1.1): kde já jsem měl hlavu where my head was

Tereza měla hlavu Tereza leaned her head měl pevnou ruku kept his hand steady

Měl ruku na její He placed his hand

Only one sample contained a zero pronoun in the English translation. The body part in this sample was used with the numeral “one“ which is not normally used along with a possessive pronoun in English:

Měla jednu ruku přehozenu She stretched one arm across his body

This type of sentences was also often translated with a “with-phrase“ or with the body part being a subject in a supplementive clause in English. Also in these cases the body part was used with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 3.2 and CAT 1.3): měl zasněţený klobouk posazen na hlavě with his head underneath a snow-covered hat těţký kufr měla nad hlavou with her heavy suitcase above her head na hlavě měla nasazenu strašlivě nepatřičnou with a terribly out-of-place bowler hat on her buřinku head hlavu měl poloţenou his head nestled

76

If the verb “to have“ was preserved in the translation and the body part was a direct object, it was used with a zero pronoun. However, this construction is not as common in

English as in Czech:

Mám pilné ruce, jasnou hlavu I have hands that can work, a clear head

If the verb “to have“ was preserved in English and the body part was a part of a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place describing an object, it was used with a possessive pronoun in the English translation (as in CAT 4.1.1): na hlavě měla buřinku but still had the hat on her head měla ji na hlavě had it on her head

Jeden z nich měl v ruce pušku One of them had a rifle in his hand

4.2.4 Parts of human body used with a personal pronoun in the dative case in Czech

If the body part was a subject in the sentence and the verb was intransitive, expressing actions uncontrollable by the possessor of the body part, the English translation usually preserved the Czech construction and replaced the personal pronoun in the dative case with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 1.2): třásla se jí ruka her hand shook

If the body part was an object of the sentence with the subject being the possessor of the body part, the English translation preserved the Czech construction and replaced the personal pronoun in the dative case with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 2.1.2): mladík si při práci vymkl ruku v rameni The man had dislocated his shoulder

77

However, in one case the English translation used the body part with the numeral

“one“ and a zero pronoun: si tiskla jednu ruku druhou pressing one hand into the other

In one case the body part was in the instrumental case, the verb was intransitive and the subject of the sentence was the possessor of the body part. The English translation changed the Czech construction into one with the body part being the subject and the verb being transitive. The result was a zero pronoun:

Malou buclatou rukou si mával do taktu A chubby little hand was keeping time

If the body part was a direct object in a sentence with the subject not being the possessor of the body part, the English translation usually preserved the Czech construction and replaced the personal pronoun in the dative case with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT

2.2.1): jestli mu slečna Barbora nepopletla hlavu whether she„s turned his head

Zlehka mi zatlačil hlavu do záklonu He gently bent my head primář mu stiskl ruku the chief surgeon shook his hand

Paní Králová mi pohladila ruku Mrs Kralova stroked my hand

Vztekle jsem jí ruku chytil I crossly grabbed her hand

In one case the English translation used a fixed phrase containing the body part in plural form and a zero pronoun: co mu stiskl ruku he had shaken hands with him

78

In two cases, the Czech construction was replaced with the English construction “have + sth + done“. In the first case the English translation used a possessive pronoun: mu [...] člověk za tuhle moudrost rozbije they are likely to have their head split open hlavu

In the second case, the English translation used an indefinite article and therefore a zero pronoun. The reason may be the tendency to stress the singular form of the body part or the generic meaning of the sentence:

ţe by vám amputovali ruku Imagine having an arm amputated

If the body part was a part of a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place describing an object in the sentence with the subject being the possessor of the body part, the English translation usually preserved the Czech construction and replaced the personal pronoun in the dative case with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 4.1.2):

Vzal si do hlavy He got it into his head nasadila si ji na hlavu put it on her head

Třískala vším, co jí přišlo do ruky She made a racket with everything that came

into her hands

If the body part was a part of a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place in the sentence with the subject not being the possessor of the body part, the English translation usually preserved the Czech construction and replaced the personal pronoun in the dative case with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 4.1.3):

79 Sundal jí buřinku s hlavy He removed the bowler from her head posadil jí buřinku na hlavu he put the hat on her head nad hlavou mu hvízdaj střepiny šrapnelů with all the flak whistling above his head mu zbraň vyrazil z ruky knocked the weapon from his hand který mu vypadne z ruky that would eventually fall from his hand

In one case, the English construction used the possessor of the body part as the subject and the body part with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 4.1.2):

Jenţe v hlavě mi to leţelo pořád But I couldn't get it out of my head

If the meaning of the sentence was generic in Czech, and the Czech original used an indefinite or a relative pronoun in the dative case, the English translation used the body part with an indefinite article or the indefinite pronoun “any“, even if the original construction of the sentence was changed, and therefore with a zero pronoun: kdyţ někomu amputují ruku person who has an arm cut off

ţe by byla komukoli popletla hlavu for turning any head at all nepopletla hlavu nikomu she couldn„t turn a head

člověka, kterému se třese ruka A person with a shaking hand

4.2.5 Parts of human body used with a personal pronoun in the accusative case in Czech

A personal pronoun in the accusative case is used in Czech if the body part is a part of a prepositinal phrase functioning as an adverbial of place with the possessor of the body part being the direct object in the sentence and thus the recipient of an action. The English translation usually used the body part as the recipient and therefore a direct object, and

80 replaced the personal pronoun in the accusative case with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT

2.2.1): mě pohladila po ruce She stroked my hand ho drţí za ruku holding his hand chytil ji za ruku he seized her hand

Hladil ho po hlavě He would stroke the puppy´s4 head

However, in a number of samples the English translation preserved the Czech construction. In these cases, the body part was used with a definite article and therefore a zero pronoun: vzala ho za ruku took him by the hand

Vzal ho za ruku The man took him by the hand

Chytila mě za ruku She seized me by the hand

Vzala mě zlehka za ruku She took me gently by the hand

In one case, the English translation changed the Czech verb into an object, added the verb “to feel“ and the body part remained a part of a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place. The result was a possessive pronoun in the translation (as in CAT 4.1.2): pak ho něco těţkého uhodilo do hlavy he felt a heavy blow on his head

In the case when the possessor of the body part was the subject of the sentence and the personal pronoun in the accusative case was the reflexive “se“, the English translation changed the Czech construction and the body part became the subject of the sentence. The result was a possessive pronoun in English (as in CAT 1.2):

4 the possessive pronoun is replaced by a noun with a genitive ´s, which is a case of explicitation

81 Chytil jsem se za hlavu My head went into my hands

In one case, the body part was used in a fixed phrase with a verb requiring a preposition. The English translation preserved the same construction and used the body part with a possessive pronoun: aby ji poţádal o ruku he had not asked for her hand in marriage

4.2.6 Parts of human body used with a zero pronoun in Czech

If the body part was used as a subject of the sentence, i.e. with a rather impersonal meaning in Czech, the English translation used it with a possessive pronoun rendering its meaning thus more personal:

Hlava se stále více zakláněla His head hung lower and lower

Pravá ruka, dosud bezvládně spočívající na His right hand , which until then had rested

řadicí páce limply on the gear

If the body part was a subject in a supplementive sentence lacking a verb, the English translations varied. I have collected one sample in which the body part was used with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 1.3): hlavu poloţenu na jejích kolenou his head resting in her lap

and two samples in which the body part was used with a zero pronoun. In these two cases, the body part was a part of a longer list describing a person´s appearance:

Svěšená hlava, pokleslá ramena, ve vyţilém The hanging head, the slumped shoulders, obličeji výraz nepojmenovatelného utrpení. and the haggard face with its expression of

unimaginable suffering.

82 Oskar stál bez hnutí nad otevřenou kapotou: Oskar stood motionless above the open front pokleslá ramena, svěšená hlava. hood: shoulders slumped, head hanging.

If the body part was an object in the sentence with the subject being the possessor of the body part in Czech, the English translation usually preserved the Czech construction and used the body part with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 2.1.1): zvedl muţ hlavu the man raised his head

Otáčel pomalu hlavu He rotated his head

Sklonila hlavu She bowed her head podala ruku mně i Saturninovi offered her hand to Saturnin and myself poloţil jsem ruku na páku applied my hand to the lever

However, in three cases, the English translation used the body part with a zero pronoun. In one case the sentence was used in a generic meaning, which may explain the translator´s choice: kdo dokáţe vztáhnout ruku who was capable of raising a hand against

The use of an indefinite article and therefore a zero pronoun in the other two examples may be explained by the translator´s intent to stress the singular form of the body part:

Poloţil jsem mu ruku na rameno I put a hand on his shoulder zřízenec zvedl ruku an employee lifted a hand

83 If the body part was in the instrumental case in Czech and the verb expressed some kind of movement accomplished with the body part, the English translation usually used the body part as a direct object and with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 2.1.1): kroutili nad jeho počínáním hlavou felt inclined to shake their heads at his

behaviour nechápavě zavrtěl hlavou shook his head in confusion pokývala hlavou inclined her head trhl hlavou zpátky he jerked his head backwards

Ţena pracující v poli nám zamávala opálenou A woman working in the fields waved a rukou sunburnt hand at us

In one case the English translation used the body part with an indefinite article and therefore a zero pronoun. The reasons may be the intention to stress the singular form of the body part or the fact that the body part is used with an adjective: dědeček mávne unaveně rukou Grandpa finally raises a weary arm

However, in many cases the original Czech construction was replaced with a “with- phrase“ in English, thus stressing the fact that the body part is an instrument used to accomplish the action. The result was a possessive pronoun in English (as in CAT 3.1): mávl rukou gestured with his hand

Saturnin volnou pravou rukou vypíná hlavní Saturnin disconnecting the main switch on kontakt the control panel with his free right hand

Dědeček si třel rukou neholenou bradu Grandpa was rubbing his unshaven chin with

his hand

84 přitiskla si ho levou rukou k tělu pressed it to her body with her left hand

In one case, the English translation omitted the preposition “with“, the body part thus becoming a subject in a supplementive clause. The result was a possessive pronoun in

English (as in CAT 1.3): drţel se jí rukou kolem pasu his arm around her waist

In some cases, the Czech verb was replaced by a noun in English which constituted the head of a “with-phrase“ with the body part becoming a part of an of-phrase describing the noun. The result was a zero pronoun in English: mávl rukou Tomáš with a wave of the hand

Udělal rukou gesto With a wave of the hand

Teta pohodila hlavou With a toss of the head

If the body part is a direct object of a sentence in which the possessor of the body part is not the subject, the use of a zero pronoun is rather unusual in Czech. More common is to use a personal pronoun in the dative case. In one of the samples I collected, the body part was used with a zero pronoun since it belonged to a person unknown by the subject of the sentence at the particular time. English translation, however, used the body part with a possessive pronoun, which caused a slight change of meaning:

Pak ucítila ruku na rameni Then she felt his hand on her shoulder

In another case the body part was used with a postmodifier and the English translation preserved the original construction. The translation used the body part with a definite article and therefore a zero pronoun:

85 Podařilo se mu vzpaţit ruku i s těţkou ţidlí he raised the hand with the heavy chair

In one case, the body part was an indirect object in the dative case in Czech, with the possessor being the subject of the sentence. The English translation slightly changed the original construction with the body part being a part of a prepositional phrase modified by a clause. The result was a definite article and therefore a zero pronoun in English: aby ulevila přeleţelé ruce to ease the pressure on the arm she had been

lying on

If the body part was a part of a “with-phrase“, the English translation usually preserved the Czech construction and used the body part with a possessive pronoun (as in

CAT 3.2): s hlavou v dlaních with his head buried in his hands s hlavou na stole with his head on the table top s buřinkou na hlavě with a bowler hat on her head s rezavou plechovkou v ruce with a rusty tin in his hands

In one case, the English translation omitted the preposition “with“, the body part thus becoming a prepositional phrase and a postmodifier in a noun phrase, the noun being the subject of a supplementive clause. The body part was used with a zero pronoun and without any other determiner: se skleničkami v ruce the same small glasses in hand

In another case, the English translation used the body part as the subject of the supplementive clause and used it with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 1.3):

86 s hlavou obrácenou k nebi their heads turned to the sky

In one case, the original “with-phrase“ was translated with the body part as a direct object of the sentence with the possessor of the body part being the initiator of the action. The result was a possessive pronoun in English (as in CAT 2.1.1): se sklopenou hlavou his only reaction was to hang his head

In one case, the original with-phrase contained only the body part without a further modifier. The English translation changed the construction and used the body part as a subject of the clause. It was used with a definitive article and therefore a zero pronoun. The reason may be a strong emotional connotation and a colloquial language:

Já jsem se, doktore, potápěl, rozumíte, i I dived right in, doctor. Do you understand s hlavou. what I„m saying? Even the head went under.

If the body part was a part of a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place, the English translation usually preserved the Czech construction and used the body part with a possessive pronoun (as in CAT 4): chodili po hlavě walking on their heads vzpaţit ruku i s těţkou ţidlí nad hlavu he raised the hand with the heavy chair above

his head zvedli deštník vysoko nad hlavu they held their umbrellas high over their

heads

Zpěvák přehodil ţerď praporu do levé ruky The singer switched the pole to his left hand

Milouš drţel v ruce dědečkovu dvojku Bertie had Grandpa„s double-barrelled

shotgun in his hand

87

Only in a few cases the body part was used with a zero pronoun in English. In one case, the body part was used with the indefinite pronoun “each“, in another case, it was used with the numeral “one“, and in three other cases, it was used in a fixed phrase with no determiners whatsoever: třímaje v kaţdé ruce jednu škrabošku wielding a mask in each hand vleče těţký kufr v jedné ruce lugging her heavy suitcase in one hand

Byla mokrá od hlavy aţ k patě She was drenched from head to foot nemohou jít ţivotem ruku v ruce they were unable to travel arm in arm osm tisíc měsíčně na ruku eight thousand a month cash in hand

If the body part occured in the genitive case functioning as a postmodifier in a noun phrase, the English translation usualy used the body part in an of-phrase. In most cases the body part was used with a possessive pronoun in English (as in CAT 5):

Malíkovou hranou pravé ruky with the edge of his hand udeřil Milouše hřbetem ruky he struck Bertie in the face with the back of

his hand aby ji miloval celou svou tváří a temenem to make love to her with it and with the hlavy crown of his head

In two cases, the body part was translated with a zero pronoun. In both cases, the of- phrase was a part of a “with-phrase“. In one case the body part was used with a definite article, in the other it was used with an indefinite article and an adjective: energickým gestem ruky With a powerful sweep of the hand jediným pohybem mokré ruky with a single wave of a wet hand

88

In one case, the Czech construction was translated with a completely different construction to English. The body part became a direct object of the sentence with the possessor of the body part being the subject. The result was a possessive pronoun in English

(as in CAT 2.1.1): mířil na Terezu velkým gestem ruky sweeping his arm from the sign to Tereza

4.2.7 Conclusion

My analysis shows that parts of human body used in Czech with a possessive pronoun, the verb “mít“ (= to have), personal pronoun in the dative case, personal pronoun in the accusative case, and a zero pronoun are in most cases translated into English with a possessive pronoun. However, it also shows a number of cases, in which the translation resulted in a zero pronoun in English. The following table shows a summary of all cases in which the body part was translated with a zero pronoun, along with possible reasons.

Table 43: Body parts translated with a zero pronoun from Czech into English

Case Czech original English translation with Possible reasons no. a zero pronoun

1 Mám pilné ruce, jasnou I have hands that can the use of the verb “to have“

hlavu work, a clear head which itself conveys the

possessive relationship

body part being modified by

a clause

89 2 si tiskla jednu ruku pressing one hand into the the use of the numeral “one“

druhou other

vleče těţký kufr v jedné lugging her heavy suitcase

ruce in one hand

3 Malou buclatou rukou si A chubby little hand was depersonalization (perhaps to

mával do taktu keeping time acquire a humorous effect)

4 ţe by vám amputovali Imagine having an arm generic meaning of the

ruku amputated sentence

kdyţ někomu amputují person who has an arm cut

ruku off

ţe by byla komukoli for turning any head at all

popletla hlavu

nepopletla hlavu nikomu she couldn„t turn a head

člověka, kterému se třese A person with a shaking

ruka hand

kdo dokáţe vztáhnout who was capable of raising

ruku a hand against

5 vzala ho za ruku took him by the hand the use of the personal object

Vzal ho za ruku The man took him by the pronoun

hand

Chytila mě za ruku She seized me by the hand

Vzala mě zlehka za ruku She took me gently by the

hand

90 6 Svěšená hlava, pokleslá The hanging head, the depersonalization

ramena, ve vyţilém slumped shoulders, and the

obličeji výraz haggard face with its

nepojmenovatelného expression of

utrpení. unimaginable suffering.

Oskar stál bez hnutí nad Oskar stood motionless

otevřenou kapotou: above the open front hood:

pokleslá ramena, svěšená shoulders slumped, head

hlava. hanging .

7 Poloţil jsem mu ruku na I put a hand on his translator´s intention the

rameno shoulder stress the singular form of

zřízenec zvedl ruku an employee lifted a hand the body part

influence of the source

language

8 dědeček mávne unaveně Grandpa finally raises a translator´s intention to stress

rukou weary arm a singular form of the body

part

the body part being modified

by an adjective

9 mávl rukou Tomáš with a wave of the hand possibly used habitually

Udělal rukou gesto With a wave of the hand when the body part is a part

Teta pohodila hlavou With a toss of the head of an of-phrase

energickým gestem ruky With a powerful sweep of postmodifying a noun

the hand denoting movement in a

with-phrase

91 jediným pohybem mokré with a single wave of a wet

ruky hand

10 Podařilo se mu vzpaţit he raised the hand with the the body part being modified

ruku i s těţkou ţidlí heavy chair by a noun phrase

11 aby ulevila přeleţelé to ease the pressure on the the body part being modified

ruce arm she had been lying on by a clause

12 se skleničkami v ruce the same small glasses in fixed phrase

hand

13 Já jsem se, doktore, I dived right in, doctor. Do strong emotional connotation

potápěl, rozumíte, i you understand what I„m colloquial language

s hlavou. saying? Even the head

went under.

14 Byla mokrá od hlavy aţ She was drenched from fixed phrase

k patě head to foot

nemohou jít ţivotem they were unable to travel

ruku v ruce arm in arm

osm tisíc měsíčně na eight thousand a month

ruku cash in hand

co mu stiskl ruku he had shaken hands with

him

15 třímaje v kaţdé ruce wielding a mask in each the use of the indefinite

jednu škrabošku hand pronoun “each“

The table shows that the body part was used with an indefinite article and therefore without a possessive pronoun repeatedly when it was a direct object in a sentence with the

92 subject being the possessor of the body part. However, the body part was used in this manner when it was one of the two complimentary body parts existing on a human body (see case no.

7 above) and it seems rather common in English to use these types of body parts with an indefinite article, possibly in order to stress their single forms.

Also, it is rather common in English to use a part of human body with a definite pronoun and therefore a zero possessive pronoun if it is a part of an of-phrase postmodifying a noun in a with-phrase (see case no. 9 above).

93 5 Conclusion

The aim of this thesis was to discover differences in the use of possessive pronouns, particularly those used with parts of human body, in English and Czech and the manner in which they are translated from one language to another.

In the theoretical part I introduced some generally known differences in the systems of possessive pronouns in English and in Czech: English system contains two sets of possessive pronouns, determinative and independent, the forms of the pronouns being in most cases different in each set, while in Czech the forms are identical. The Czech system contains the reflexive possessive pronoun “svůj“, which can be used in all persons singular and plural, while no reflexive pronouns exist in the English system. English possessive pronouns do not distinguish gender and number and are not declined, Czech possessive pronouns distinguish gender and number and are declined. English possessive pronouns cannot be preceded by articles, demonstrative pronouns or the indefinite pronoun “no“, Czech possessive pronouns can be preceded by demonstrative pronouns or the indefinite pronoun “ţádný“.

I also introduced the hypothesis that possessive pronouns are used with a considerably higher frequency in English than in Czech, especially when they refer to parts of human body, family members, friends, and personal objects. In Czech, zero pronoun or a personal pronoun in the dative case are very often used instead. I presented Piťha´s notion that in Czech, the possessive relationship can be expressed by the verb “mít“ and “být“, other verbs (such as

“patřit“, etc.), possessive pronouns, genitive case, prepositional phrases, and dative case, and arrived at my own hypothesis that since we translate meaning, not words, English possessive pronouns may be translated into Czech with any other of the above stated indicators of possession.

In the second part of my thesis, I confirmed the hypothesis that possessive pronouns are used with an approximately 1.5 times higher frequency in English and in Czech. I also

94 discovered, that the most frequent English possessive pronoun is “his”, while in Czech it is the reflexive possessive pronoun “svůj”, with “jeho” (= his) being the second most frequent.

The comparison of the frequencies of possessive pronouns in original English works of fiction and English translations of Czech works of fiction did not show any considerable difference. On the other hand, the comparison of the frequencies of possessive pronouns in original Czech works of fiction and Czech translations of English works of fiction showed that possessive pronouns are used slightly less frequently in Czech translations, which may be the result of the translators´ tendency to avoid English constructions in the text. However, the difference in frequencies was not high enough to prove any valid generalisations for which a further study would be necessary.

I also confirmed the hypothesis that the frequency of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body is considerably higher in original English works of fiction than in original Czech works of fiction, the frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body part

“hand” being approximately 13.6 times higher and the frequency of possessive pronouns used with the body part “head” being approximately 16.1 times higher in English than in Czech.

The comparison of the frequencies of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in original English works of fiction and English translations of Czech works of fiction showed that possessive pronouns used with body parts are used slightly less frequently in English translations, which may be the result of the translators´ use of Czech constructions in the

English text. The comparison of the frequencies of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body in original Czech works of fiction and Czech translations of English works of fiction did not show any considerable differences, with the exception of “Šťastný Jim”, in which the frequency was markedly higher than in the other texts, which may be the result of the translator´s idiosyncracy.

95 My analysis of translations from English into Czech shows that possessive pronouns used with parts of human body often disappear in the Czech translation due to the fact that their function is conveyed in Czech by:

- personal pronoun in the dative case – especially in cases in which the body part is a direct object or a part of a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place in sentences in which the subject is not the possessor of the body part

- personal pronoun in the accusative case – especially in cases when the body part is a direct object of a sentence in which the subject is not the possessor of the body part and the

Czech translation uses a construction in which the body part becomes a part of a prepositional phrase

- the verb “mít“ (= to have), especially in sentences like “His eyes are blue.“ in English which are usually translated with a more common Czech construction “Má modré oči.“ (“He has blue eyes.“)

- the preposition “s“ (= with), especially in so called “with-phrases“ in which the body part conveys the manner of the action performed by the possessor of the body part

However, in many cases the possession expressed by a possessive pronoun in English, is not expressed in Czech as the possessor is clear from the context. This happens especially when:

- the body part is a direct oject of a sentence in which the subject is the possessor of the body part

- the body part is in a “with-phrase“ and functions as an instrument used by the possessor to perform some kind of action

- the body part is in a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place and the subject of the sentence is the possessor of the body part

The possessive pronoun used with parts of human body is most often preserved when:

96 - the occurrence of two body parts with different possessors could lead to confusion

- the verb is sensory

- the body part is in a prepositional phrase functioning as an adverbial of place, the subject of the sentence is not the possessor of the body part and the actions take place outside the body part without touching it

- the body part is in a prepositional phrase functioning as a modifier in a noun phrase

- the body part is a complement

The analysis of the translations of possessive pronouns used with parts of human body from Czech to English showed that parts of human body used in Czech with a possessive pronoun, the verb “mít” (= to have), a personal pronoun in the dative case, a personal pronoun in the accusative case and a zero pronoun are usually translated with a possessive pronoun into English if they occur in the constructions corresponding to the categories in 4.2.

However, the body parts were translated with a zero pronoun when the English translation preserved the verb “to have”, when the body part was used with a numeral “one” or the indefinite pronoun “each”, in sentences with a generic meaning, when the translation preserved the Czech construction “subject + verb + personal pronoun in the dative case + the body part”, when the body part was one of the two existing on the human body and the translator wanted to stress its singular form and used it therefore with an indefinite pronoun, in the constructions such as “with a wave of the hand“ in which the body part is in an of- phrase modifying a noun denoting movement in a with-phrase, in some fixed phrases and in several minor particular cases.

97 6 Bibliography

Primary works (in an electronic form)

Parallel Czech-English texts in the corpus InterCorp, created by the Faculty of Arts,

Charles University, Prague:

Jirotka, Zdeněk. Saturnin. Československý spisovatel, 1991.

Kundera, Milan. Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí. Sixty-Eight Publishers, Toronto 1985.

Viewegh, Michal. Výchova dívek v Čechách. Český spisovatel, Praha 1994.

Parallel English-Czech texts in the corpus Kačenka created by the Department of

English and American Studies, Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University in Brno:

Amis, Kingsley. Lucky Jim. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,1962. (1st edition: 1954)

Frost, Mark. The List of Seven. New York: William Morrow and Company,1993.

Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. London: MacMillan and Co., 1951.

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Biber, Douglas, et al. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Pearson

Education, 1999.

Curme, George O. A Grammar of the English Language. Vol. 2: Parts of Speech and

Accidence. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1931.

Dušková, Libuše, et al. Mluvnice angličtiny na pozadí češtiny. Praha: Academia, 1988.

Grepl, Miroslav, et al. Příruční mluvnice češtiny. Praha: Lidové Noviny, 1995.

Hais, Karel. Anglická mluvnice. Praha: Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, 1975.

Havránek, Bohuslav and Alois Jedlička. Česká mluvnice. Praha: Státní pedagogické

nakladatelství, 1981.

98 Hnük von Wicher, Helena. English Grammar. Anglická gramatika. Praha: Svoboda, 1998.

Huddleston, Rodney, and Geoffrey K. Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar of the English

Language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002.

Piťha, Petr. Posesivní vztah v češtině. Praha, 1990.

Quirk, Randolph, et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. New York:

Longman, 1985.

Strang, Barbara M. H. Modern English Structure. London: Edward Arnold, 1968.

Strnadová, Zdenka. Mluvnice angličtiny. Voznice: Leda, 2002.

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